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Practical Stage Directing 
for Amateurs 

A Handbook for 
Amateur Managers and Actors 



By 

Emerson Taylor 




E. P. Dutton and Company 
681 Fifth Avenue. New York. 



■?^ s 



Copyright, 1916 
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



MAR 13 1916 

©CLA428074 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE PAGE 

I Introductory 1 

II The Choice op a Play .... 7 

III Organization 24 

IV Rehearsing 62 

V The Amateur Actor's A-B-C . . .98 

VI Make-Up 126 

VII The Stage and the Scenery . . .146 



Practical Stage Directing 
for Amateurs 



PRACTICAL STAGE DIRECTING 
FOR AMATEURS 



INTRODUCTORY 

Until comparatively recently, the pro- 
duction and performance of plays by 
amateurs have been judged by the least 
exacting standards. Charity spread her 
mantle wide over shortcomings which were 
somehow considered inevitable; and, con- 
versely, there was very little effort on the 
part of those engaged in the performance 
to accomplish any very ambitious purpose. 
Critics were scrupulously careful to re- 
member every single actor in their gener- 
ously glowing tributes; the audience was 
always willing to express the conviction 



2 Amateur Stage Directing 

that "after all, amateur plays do have a 
charm of their own, so different from real 
plays," — and meant nothing equivocal. 
It is perfectly true, as we all know, that a 
kind of pleasant interest did attach to 
these friendly gatherings. They were in 
their way capital fun. 

But lately we have come to believe, and 
probably with good reason, that there is 
a whole lot more to be got out of amateur 
performances which are organized, played 
and judged in a rather different and more 
exacting spirit. As a growing element in 
our theater-going population are demand- 
ing (and getting, pace the croakers J) a 
better class of plays, something of the 
same element is asking for improvement 
in taste and execution in amateur pro- 
ductions. What has happened in the case 
of the amateur musician is now happen- 
ing in the case of the amateur actor. He 
must do better. And responding to this 



Introductory 3 

demand — if one can so name that which 
is no more than an indefinite but insistent 
feeling — the actor has found that he has 
gained in every way. If amateur players 
aim as high as they can ; if they work hard 
to give a performance which modestly asks 
to be judged by professional standards; if 
they try to get all the values possible out 
of the play ; if, instead of merely reading 
lines, they make a real attempt — with 
what light they have — to impersonate 
character, we think there is a great gain 
all round. Not only is it more fun, but 
there is also a marked and permanent ad- 
vance in accepted standards. Not only 
are rehearsals more interesting, when they 
are made the occasion of intelligent study, 
but they are a whole lot more amusing 
than those of the older type. 

One would probably disclaim immedi- 
ately and with sincerity, when advocating 
higher standards, any desire to make of 



4 Amateur Stage Directing 

amateur acting one of the pleasures which 
we Americans are accused of taking sadly. 
But in chosen lines, something in us makes 
us want to excel; and if this feeling has 
come in these days to color the aspirations 
of those who find entertainment in acting, 
we can only accept what is an accom- 
plished fact, and help a little to make the 
best of it. Perhaps, even, the educators 
are all wrong in believing that the general 
instinct for self expression, as it finds its 
outlet by means of the stage, should be 
carefully nurtured and developed. It 
may be that the schools, with their pag- 
eants and their carefully trained dra- 
matics, are wasting time terribly. But, 
after all, we appear committed to the ex- 
periment; no class is taking the drama 
with such seriousness as the teachers. 
And since no experiment is worth any- 
thing at all unless it is performed thor- 
oughly and with all the resources of the 



Introductory 5 

laboratory, it is well for us to help the 
teachers and the investigators all we can. 
If the steadily growing and spreading in- 
terest in the drama both as a fine art, a 
civic asset, a source of intelligent enter- 
tainment, and a force in education, re- 
sults in a general raising of our critical 
standards and an intensifying of our sym- 
pathetic appreciation, what vast good will 
be accomplished ! And, confident that the 
performance of plays by amateurs is one 
of the very best means of quickening their 
perceptions of the play's dramatic and 
artistic values, we applaud whole heart- 
edly any attempt to "give a good show." 

One cannot teach acting by written 
formulas and rules; a great part of the 
success of a good stage manager depends 
on the personal equation. But it is be- 
lieved possible, at least, to enumerate the 
principles on which a good stage produc- 
tion is based, and to make generally avail- 



6 Amateur Stage Directing 

able some of the elementary points of the 
technical knowledge vitally necessary to 
both actor and manager. And that is 
what the following notes attempt to ac- 
complish. 



Note — To avoid the necessity of referring to 
an index, the page-headings on the right-hand 
pages have been made sufficiently detailed to serve 
as a guide to the reader. 



II 

THE CHOICE OF A PLAY 

This first problem to present itself to 
those who wish to give an amateur per- 
formance, is that which can never be solved 
twice alike. It seems no answer at all 
to say that the choice of a play depends 
entirely on circumstances, yet that is so 
much the case that any more specific an- 
swer must bristle with all sorts of reserva- 
tions and explanations. Requirements 
and standards are so diverse and various. 
Here is a group of utterly inexperienced 
young people who want to "get up a 
play" for their own amusement, or, inci- 
dentally, to raise money for some charity. 
Here is a boys' or a girls' school, of sec- 
ondary grade, where participation in 
school dramatics under supervision is made 



8 Amateur Stage Directing 

an incident of considerable, though sugar- 
coated, educational value. Here are dra- 
matic clubs of every grade of talent and 
intelligence, or reading circles, which for 
a winter have been studying some as- 
pect of the drama, shifting groups of in- 
finitely varied tastes, and requirements, 
and all of them ask the one question, to 
begin with: "What are we to choose?" 

While one can suggest only with a cer- 
tain sense of diffidence, it is believed that 
there is one principle at least which should 
color and shape all the work of selecting 
the right play, for whatever group of 
amateur players. Select a play worth 
the trouble and time that must be spent 
on it! There is an incalculable amount of 
time and energy sadly wasted on rehears- 
ing dull stuff by unknown writers. A 
curious tradition, prevalent still, appears 
to restrict the amateur to material which 
the professional stage would never dream 



Choice of a Play — Worth Doing 9 

of accepting — puerile farces, unreal emo- 
tional pieces, crass and crude sentimental 
rubbish, with sugar-candy, persecuted 
heroines, sneering villains, muscular and 
virtuous heroes, and all the roster of age- 
old, storehouse characters whom Jerome 
has held up for our ridicule so deliciously. 
Do something — or decide to do something 
— worth while, written by a real play- 
wright to be actually performed by real 
actors. One must insist that any play 
selected, though there be no other purpose 
in the performance than the amusement of 
the actors, shall be well worth doing well. 
And this means, as a minimum, that the 
piece shall give ample opportunity for 
good acting and impersonation, that it re- 
quire such careful staging as will put the 
stage manager and his assistants on their 
mettle, that its interest, whether of story 
or pictorial investiture, or both, shall be so 
broadly human in its sympathetic appeal, 



10 Amateur Stage Directing 

so colorful, as to awaken a real response in 
both audience and players. 

More specifically, plays of direct and 
strong general appeal, whether serious or 
comic, are the ones best adapted (other 
things being equal) for amateur use. 
Plays of sound sentiment — not sentimen- 
tality — which have self sacrifice, patri- 
otism, mother love, or any other of the 
deeply seated human qualities to motive 
their characters, usually do well both for 
player and audience. Plays with firmly 
drawn, broadly colored characters, di- 
rectly expressed feelings, plenty of action, 
and solidly constructed situations of simple 
and primitively human emotions — tears or 
loud laughter, are of the type which the 
beginner can apprehend and carry through 
to the point of pretty capable and rounded 
execution. True, there is a rooted 
timidity on the part of perhaps the ma- 
jority of amateurs with respect to scenes 



Choice of a Play — Not too Slight 11 

of strong emotion and tender feeling. 
He fears, by failing to sustain them, to be- 
come merely ridiculous. But, as a mat- 
ter of experience, it is more often the case 
that the average amateur rises to his best 
work in passages of just that description. 
It is closer to the truth to assert that more 
amateur plays fail because the sentiment 
is so slight, the fun so mild, the issues so 
unimportant, the whole so thin. It re- 
quires the highest professional skill to play 
a scene of slight and delicate texture and 
make anything of it at all. In unskilled 
hands such a scene becomes merely vapid 
and empty. No question but what it is 
capital practice for a couple of amateurs 
to study and practice the love scenes in 
"The School for Scandal"; but they can 
more completely realize and set forth the 
values of robuster scenes, as those between 
(for the sake of comparison) Petruchio 
and Katherine. 



12 Amateur Stage Directing 

It is to be hoped that the appearance 
of utterly contradicting the sense of the 
preceding paragraph will be avoided, if 
a certain caution is appended to it. Plays 
of broad human appeal, by all means, 
whether grave or gay, — but this does not 
mean that the amateur actor has a license 
even to essay dramas where the theme and 
the handling involve the depiction of the 
great, heart-shaking tragic emotions of 
humanity that we have in "Lear," let us 
say, or in "Macbeth." Not only is any 
such attempt absurd, but it involves also 
the danger of fatal errors of an artistic 
sort. Such plays simply cannot be done 
by amateurs. The exotic quality and vast 
historical perspective of the Greek trage- 
dies perhaps safeguard them well enough, 
and naturally their immense historical and 
literary values commend them to our 
modern study; but even so, it is a perilous 
matter for the average amateur to essay 



Choice of a Play — Farces 13 

one of those stupendous roles. And it is 
perhaps not too much to assert that, if 
tragedy is the Scylla, farce is the Charyb- 
dis to be avoided. Take the opinion for 
what it is worth — perhaps it is not worth 
anything. But the view of many a stage 
manager, who hopes and works for an ef- 
fective production, is that farce is fear- 
fully risky — though it is the type of play 
toward which the amateur gravitates ap- 
parently by instinct. Farce is fearfully 
hard to play well. It may be fun for the 
actor, but those who have to witness the 
performance of the average amateur fun 
maker are only too apt to suffer sadly. It 
would seem as though nowhere is the gulf 
separating the amateur and the profes- 
sional so wide and deep as just here. Our 
friends who are so funny when they do 
some parlor "stunt" after dinner, who 
are naturally so clever and so witty, nearly 
always fade and droop lamentably when 



14 Amateur Stage Directing 

they attempt to romp through the mazes 
of "The Private Secretary," "Box and 
Cox," "All the Comforts of Home," 
"Lend Me Five Shillings," or "The Ama- 
zons," to name a few of the farces most * 
commonly found on the amateur bills. Is 
there any spectacle sadder than the 
comedians in amateur musical plays? 
Those faint echoes of Joe Weber; those 
pale shadows of Harry Lauder, William 
Collier, or Eddie Foy! Good enough at 
home, but desperately thin and unsub- 
stantial in the glare of the "foots." There 
is an unction, a drive, a curious personal 
magnetism, which are inseparable from 
effective acting of farce; there is an inti- 
mate knowledge of many extremely diffi- 
cult technical tricks ; there is ever so much 
in the facial play and the gesture, vitally 
important to the farceur, and in the vast 
majority of cases utterly outside the 
ability of the amateur. Broad farce per- 



Choice of a Play — Possibilities 15 

haps is inevitable ; it is certainly legitimate. 
But one runs the risk of abysmal failure. 

Paradoxically enough, amateurs can 
oftentimes attain remarkable success in 
plays which are written in a mood and in 
an idiom not quite that of the theater as 
we have come to know it. The earlier 
plays of Maeterlinck, such as "L'ln- 
terieur," — plays of such delicate fabric 
that they express no more than an atmos- 
phere or a mood ; many of the plays of the 
modern Irishmen and modern Germans, 
to enumerate oddly different types, can 
be astonishingly well interpreted by those 
who are touched only faintly with the 
habitual, traditional methods of the stage, 
if they are intelligently and sympatheti- 
cally handled by the stage manager. 
And that a choice of such plays, given 
favorable circumstances and the proper 
audience, is more than justified on the 
grounds of their exquisite literary and 



16 Amateur Stage Directing 

very important historical qualities, goes 
without saying. 

For these qualities of literary excellence 
and historical value should enter into the 
calculations of all those who wish to take 
the amateur stage at all seriously. It is 
understood that there is a tendency — and 
a stifling one ! — to make too much of such 
elements in a play at the expense of the 
dramatic; and this we believe should be 
vigorously combated. The stage must 
have plays that can be acted. But, when 
possible, let us find these qualities pres- 
ent; let us make the very most of them. 
To exact a minimum of our author, let us 
insist, at least, that his language shall 
possess either fidelity to the time and the 
people he has chosen — that it shall have the 
tang of idiom and of crisp workmanship, 
or, if he writes in verse, let us insist that ■ 
his verse have in it the genuine worth of 
real poetry. And going further — and di- 



Choice of a Play — Period Plays 17 

verging a little — let us urge that there is 
much to be said in favor of amateurs' try- 
ing their wings, whenever possible, in some 
of the plays of other times and other 
schools of the drama. Let nobody believe 
that this will take from the desired good 
times incident to rehearsal and prepara- 
tion, for the contrary is the fact. It is not 
only infinitely more worth while, but it is 
a lot more fun, when all is said, to pro- 
duce an Elizabethan play (like the "Fair 
Maid of the West"), a medieval mystery, 
or something from Moliere (like "Le 
Bourgeois Gentilhomme" or "Les 
Femmes Savantes"), to name only a few 
of the ancient types, than perhaps most 
of the modern material available for ama- 
teurs. Played with a will, in accordance, 
so far as we understand them, with the 
conventions of the period, in every detail, 
an old-time drama of this sort will make 
rag-time comic opera and washy "he-and- 



18 Amateur Stage Directing 

she" love stories appear thin and dull 
enough. One must acknowledge the dan- 
ger of pedantry in such undertakings ; but 
it is a question whether the advantages do 
not more than countervail the risks. 

In choosing a play with a historical set- 
ting, written by a modern author, take care 
that the setting is faithful, that the theme 
and the language, the atmosphere and the 
physical details, are properly in keeping 
with the age which the play portrays, that 
the whole is consistent. 

Whenever possible, select a play which 
will give fairly equal opportunities to each 
of the principal actors. This is con- 
fessedly very difficult ; but it is not well to 
encourage the vanity of this or that ama- 
teur Duse or Irving by letting her or (oc- 
casionally!) him dominate a play, in a 
star part, to the belittling of the others. 
If you want to keep the interest of your 
actors going strong all through rehearsals, 



Choice of a Play — Moral Values 19 

give them all a chance at one good scene 
anyhow. Properly studied, nearly any 
play will reveal many opportunities in ap- 
parently inconspicuous parts for a clever 
character actor. Try to develop these to 
the limit. Remember always that what 
the amateur stage manager should try for 
is balance and general average excellence. 
Since moral values vary so, and are so 
largely concerned and confused with taste, 
it is difficult to lay down in a positive man- 
ner any advice as to the choice of a play 
based on or involving the physical relation 
of the sexes. Young love, the tender re- 
lationships of old age, marital difficulties 
and reconciliations, forming as they do the 
theme of so many plays, can hardly be 
avoided, and need not. But difficulties 
arise nearly always when there is any ques- 
tion of selecting a play with a theme like 
that of "Monna Vanna," or "Iris," or any 
of the many light farces built around ad- 



20 Amateur Stage Directing 

ventures in love. Probably they should be 
avoided, if only for their lack of that broad 
human appeal we laid down as a pre- 
requisite, or, if not, for the fact that plays 
of this sort, to carry, must be played with 
a skill transcending that of the amateur 
many times. Generally speaking, how- 
ever, there is not much likelihood of this 
type of play being selected at all or even 
considered, for obvious reasons. And an- 
other reason would be the fact that the nat- 
ural diffidence most amateurs feel in play- 
ing even the simplest love scene would 
prove an effectual barrier against the 
choice of plays involving a display of 
deeper passion or light-hearted inconse- 
quence. 

With all diffidence, might one remind 
the amateurs in search of a suitable play 
of one limitation on that choice which is 
sometimes overlooked or disregarded? 
Let us be frank, and acknowledge that no 



Choice of a Play — Stage Technique 21 

group of amateurs, however naturally- 
talented and carefully rehearsed, can ex- 
pect to compare in point of technical skill 
with professional actors. It is perfectly 
true that, given an equal training, a great 
many amateurs could take their places 
away from an equal number of "real" 
actors to-morrow. The amateur has an 
intelligence, an education, a range of cul- 
ture, which, generally speaking, exceeds 
and excels that of his professional brother. 
He has had better opportunities. All he 
lacks is hard and prolonged drill in stage 
methods and conventions, in elocution and 
carriage. But, without this drill, lacking 
all but a surface knowledge of stage tech- 
nique, he appears, whatever his natural 
ability, at a disadvantage. He cannot 
produce the effects; he cannot express 
thoughts and emotions; he cannot even 
walk about the stage. He can only ap- 
proximate, when the professional can finish 



22 Amateur Stage Directing 

and round, a scene. If there is any under- 
estimate of the amateur's skill here, native 
or acquired, it is done with the one pur- 
pose of warning amateurs, as a rule, not to 
choose plays beyond their capabilities. 
Use some common sense in your selections. 
If your company is really experienced and 
pretty well versed, from many appear- 
ances, in something more than the rudi- 
ments of stage technique, this caution can 
be fairly disregarded, and you need not 
hesitate to select a play which brings you 
into direct competition with a professional 
tradition. This, because the freshness and 
spirit, the conscientiousness and the intel- 
ligence of the actors furnish a secure 
enough basis to build on. But if your 
company is made up of beginners, how- 
ever keen, tread softly. Remember that 
you can accomplish results only between 
very circumscribed lines, and do not try 
for too much. Better a good performance 



Choice of a Play 23 

of a simple play than a partial or complete 
failure and wreck with a difficult play. 
See what your "leading lady" can do with 
a piece like "Cousin Kate" before you en- 
courage her to essay Rosalind. 



Ill 

ORGANIZATION 

If we suppose the play has been 
selected, the dates of the production set- 
tled, and everybody concerned ready to be- 
gin preparations, the matter of proper and 
not too elaborate organization presents it- 
self for consideration. For it is idle to ex- 
pect good results on the night of perform- 
ance unless all the machinery needed for 
launching the play is in good running or- 
der. Certain duties must be assigned to 
certain individuals ; there must be a thor- 
ough preparation of the text of the play; 
the cast and the understudies must be 
chosen; the general executive work both 
of the stage and of the box office must all 
be portioned off and set in motion. And 
all this must be attended to before re- 

24 



Organization — The Manager 25 

hearsals begin, for the sake of comfort and 
ease and efficiency all combined. Prob- 
ably all these details of preparation and 
organization will be undertaken by some 
executive committee of the club or school. 
But however the arrangements are made, 
let them be in the hands of clear-headed 
persons who work without any fussing. 

THE STAGE MANAGER 

The very first thing to attend to, in pre- 
paring for an amateur play, is to select the 
very best Stage Manager available. On 
this point there can be absolutely no dis- 
cussion. Without a stage manager, you 
can get no good results. Unless rehears- 
als are conducted and directed by some 
one outside the cast, who can look at the 
thing from the outside, there is absolutely 
no use trying. It is not too much to say 
that in amateur plays, though he does not 
appear at the performance, the stage 



26 Amateur Stage Directing 

manager is of far more importance than 
the most talented actor. On him rests the 
main responsibility for the play's success 
or failure. 

What about his duties and his posi- 
tion? 

The stage manager is the ruler of re- 
hearsals, the mainspring of the whole per- 
formance, and from his decisions there is 
no appeal. It is only on this understand- 
ing that he should accept the post. It is 
his conception of the play which is pro- 
duced; it is he who says that the actors 
shall speak and move thus and so ; his direc- 
tions even as to minutice of make-ups and 
costumes which are to be carried out loy- 
ally. Naturally, if the interest of the 
actors is awake, if the members of the club 
or the school have certain ideas they would 
like to see carried out, they will be glad 
enough to offer suggestions in the proper 
way and proper spirit, and the stage man- 



Organization — The Manager 27 

ager will doubtless be able and glad to 
make use of many of them. A capital co- 
operation is possible, with the exercise of 
tact on both sides. But it must be clearly- 
apprehended that the man who directs and 
is responsible, is the man who has the final 
word without argument. While he will 
welcome suggestions, he must not abate 
his authority for an instant. The actors 
are to do as he directs; his ideas as to the 
details of the production are to be accepted 
without question. Assistance he must 
have, but never interference. Choose 
somebody for the position of stage man- 
ager in whom entire confidence may be 
placed, and then let him go ahead with a 
free hand. 

And there must be one stage manager, 
not several. No amateur play was ever 
anything but a weariness to the flesh for 
the actors and a trial of patience to the 
audience, which was attempted with a 



28 Amateur Stage Directing 

"committee" in charge of rehearsals and 
performance. 

Sometimes the stage manager is called 
the "coach," and, as such, his work is lim- 
ited practically to training the actors in 
reading lines and in the rudiments of stage 
deportment. But a broader and , truer 
conception of his duties, based on a better 
understanding of the stage manager's posi- 
tion on the professional stage, is gradually 
coming to prevail ; and this makes the place 
one of supreme importance and au- 
thority. We should think of the stage 
manager just as we think of the conductor 
of an orchestra. As the latter "reads" a 
symphony, so the former "reads" a play. 
Both are interpreters. Each has a clear 
and personal conception of tempi, values, 
shadings of all kinds; each makes use of 
his performers to express this conception 
with what skill and perf ectness is possible. 
Just as the musical director makes use of 



Organization — The Manager 29 

the varied qualities and powers of wood 
winds, strings, and brasses, blending them 
all in such relations as he believes will best 
express the meaning and character of the 
composition, so the stage manager en- 
deavors to blend into a homogeneous and 
intricately pattern38pigle effect, the per- 
sonalities of the cast, the scenery, lights, 
costumes, accessories, and the text of the 
play. Each has a task far greater and far 
more worth while than merely to instruct 
the various groups of musicians, or the 
several actors ranged before him, how best 
to perform their several parts. 

Thus conceived, the position of stage 
manager will require a pretty capable per- 
son to fill it. While there is no need for 
him to be an accomplished actor, any more 
than there is need for a conductor to be a 
virtuoso on the violin or the flute, he must 
have a good knowledge of the effect he 
wants any individual actor to produce and 



30 Amateur Stage Directing 

be able to explain it. He must have read- 
ing enough and imagination enough to 
grasp intelligently and with sympathy the 
pictorial, historical, or dramatic values of 
any given scene. He must have enough 
artistic instinct and training to arrange* 
masses and smaller compositions of figures 
effectively. He must have as full a tech- 
nical knowledge of stage limitations and 
exigencies as may be. Most of all, the 
stage manager must have that curious gift 
or trait called personality which makes it 
easy for other persons to obey him, and 
that fellow-gift which enables a man to 
see his own ideas clearly and to transmit 
them to others. Was it by oversight that 
no mention has been made of good temper 
and civility? Plenty of good stage mana- 
gers have neither ; but in the long run it is 
the patient man with a quiet voice who 
gets results, not the noisy person or the 
nagger. 



Organization — The Staff 31 

THE STAFF 

Since the duties of staging even a simple 
play are, after all, both complex and mani- 
fold, it is very necessary to make a division 
of them, from the beginning of organiza- 
tion. While the stage manager must 
have supreme authority, it is plain that he 
will require assistance. Not from any 
"committee," be it said again. His help 
must come from regularly appointed staff 
officers, so to call them, each with a special 
and limited group of duties to attend to. 

These officers are : — 

Business Manager 
Stage Carpenter 
Property Master 
Electrician 

Prompter (or Assistant Stage 
Manager) . 

To the Business Manager must be dele- 
gated all the work connected with what, in 



32 Amateur Stage Directing 

professional jargon, is called "the front of 
the house." Such duties as supplying 
press notices, printing and advertising, 
programs, seat sale, patroness list, the 
engaging of orchestra and ushers, are, in 
general, those which fall to his share, to- 
gether with all work incident to the han- 
dling of tickets and the checking up of ac- 
counts. 

The Stage Carpenter, under orders of 
the stage manager, provides, sets up, and 
shifts the scenery and stage settings, raises 
and lowers the curtain, has general charge 
of what may be called the mechanical side 
of the production. His crew of four or 
five helpers will be divided into "grips," 
who handle the standing sets of scenery, 
and the "flymen," who from the fly gal- 
lery raise and lower drops and ceilings and 
any special things like extra strip lights 
or borders which are handled from aloft. 
The stage manager must provide the car- 



Organization — "Props" 33 

penter with a full Scene Plot, showing the 
diagram of the stage and a full description 
and enumeration of the pieces of scenery 
needed for each act. 

The Property Master (good old 
"Props," most fertile of contrivers, true 
son of Autolycus!) provides and cares for, 
also places in the proper place for use, 
every article needed by the characters of 
the play in the course of the action, except 
costumes. Bob Acres's dueling pistols, 
Lady Macbeth's candle, the telephone in- 
struments, letters, table ware, daggers, 
telegraph blanks, glasses of wine or vials 
of poison (cold tea in either case!), the 
pens and ink, the thousand and one things 
which are handled, referred to, lost, found, 
destroyed or discovered in the thousand 
and one plays of record, — all of them fall 
to the lot of worthy "Props" to be bor- 
rowed or stolen for the performance. For 
never, according to ancient and accepted 



34s Amateur Stage Directing 

tradition, does "Props" buy anything he 
can get by means dark and devious. Per- 
sonal properties, so called, — an eye glass, 
a ring, a handkerchief, say — used by only 
a single character and carried on his per- 
son, are usually looked out for by the actor 
himself. The responsibility of "Props" to 
have every needed thing exactly in its 
place at the right moment does not usu- 
ally extend to the oversight of these few 
articles. He is provided with a complete 
list of properties required. 

The Electrician, who must have a thor- 
ough knowledge of electrical work, pro- 
vides and manipulates all the lights of 
whatever sort, as the requirements of the 
play demand. He must be provided by 
the stage manager with a Light Plot, 
which accurately shows when and where 
(by means of suitable cues) sunrises, 
moonlight, grate fires, and similar special 
lighting effects are needed by the action 



Organization — Prompter 35 

of the play, also what colors and degrees of 
illumination from footlights, borders, strip 
lights, spot lights, at all times, so he can 
have his wiring and connections arranged 
in plenty of time. 

The duties of the Prompter, who may 
also be the stage manager's handy man, are 
specifically to stand throughout the per- 
formance, script in hand and eyes on the 
script, ready to supply instantly the neces- 
sary words to an actor forgetting his lines. 
Naturally he must be thoroughly familiar 
with the play, — not only with the text, but 
also through constant attendance at re- 
hearsals, with the pace and the manner of 
performance. Thus, he must not confuse 
an intentional pause on the actor's part 
with a possible forgetfulness. He must 
know the play so well, that, if an actor 
skips a page or so by mistake (which hap- 
pens in the best regulated stage families), 
he can turn without hesitation to the place 



36 Amateur Stage Directing 

at which the errant one returns to the fold. 
As handy man, the prompter may prop- 
erly be asked to see that the actors have the 
copies of the text and the few properties 
which are often necessary at rehearsals, 
he may often be of service in planning 
scenery and costumes, during the perform- 
ance he may act as call boy, warning the 
actors of the time when an act will be 
called ; all the way through, he should be at 
the stage manager's call for the thousand 
small offices occurring at each rehearsal. 
Thankless work, but mighty useful, that 
of the prompter! 

It should be noted that none of these 
staff officers should take part in the play 
being produced. They fill responsible 
and busy positions, all of them, which will 
take all the time and thought any ama- 
teur may fairly be expected to expend. 
In all dramatic clubs, it is a capital plan 
for the members to take turns acting and 



Organization — The Cast 37 

helping "back stage," or "out in front" (in 
the box office). Knowledge of every de- 
partment of the work of that quaintly com- 
plicated institution, the theater, has a real 
value, of one sort or another. 

SELECTING THE CAST 

Whenever possible, as in the case of a 
school or college dramatic society with a 
large membership, the cast of a play 
should be selected by means of very ex- 
haustive tryouts. This is a democratic 
method; it is as fair as any other; it pro- 
motes a capital and healthy rivalry; it 
starts the play off with the very real ad- 
vantage of having a cast which is prob- 
ably very keen for the work in hand. 
Trials may be as prolonged and as exhaus- 
tive as one pleases; but their object, it is 
believed, should be (1) to determine any 
given aspirant's fitness to appear in the 
particular play in hand at all, and (2) his 



38 Amateur Stage Directing 

or her suitability for this or that particular 
role. The first set of tests, that is, will 
tend to bring out a given actor's probable 
capacity for (say) eighteenth century 
comedy, and will reveal his entire unsuit- 
ability (perhaps) for rural melodrama; 
will show in him the makings of a 
capital low comedian; will make evident 
his utter incapacity for doing any of 
the roles in "Lady Windermere's Fan." 
By this means also the hopelessly unfit will 
be weeded out promptly. The second set 
of tests, however, will bring candidates for 
any given role into healthy and keen com- 
petition directly with one another. 

In establishing any set of standards by 
which to judge candidates, some attention 
will have to be paid to an aspirant's phys- 
ical suitability for the part. A great deal 
of nonsense, of course, is talked in these 
days about this matter of selecting only 
"types." Many forget that skillful 



Organization — The Cast 39 

make-up and a talent for impersonation 
will enable a good actor to appear most 
creditably in parts for which nature, to 
judge from his physical conformation, 
never intended him. But he whose figure 
was fashioned for a Falstaff can hardly fill 
the eye of the critical in the part of a 
Mercutio ; the girl who looks like a Lydia 
Languish is at a disadvantage if she aspires 
to play Lady Macbeth. Character parts, 
generally speaking, depend less on nat- 
ural physical qualifications than other 
parts ; it is perfectly right to depend on the 
make-up box to help build up an imper- 
sonation; it is safe to say that one may 
grant considerable leeway in the matter at 
all times. But in parts which demand of 
the actor perfectly obviously necessary 
physical traits, such as beauty, grace, mus- 
cular strength, height, littleness, leanness 
or solidity, candidates not possessing them 
should usually be passed over. 



40 Amateur Stage Directing 

It is well also to take into* account the 
natural quality of the candidate's voice, its 
flexibility, its control. 

Lastly, judge the candidates in the be- 
ginning on their natural intelligence in 
conceiving the part they wish to essay. 
Not alone should they look their parts 
(which make-up will assist in), read the 
lines decently (where good training will 
work wonders), but they must feel the 
part. They must reveal from the outset 
that they have some sort of a conception 
(even a wrong one, if only it is clean cut) 
both of the nature of the character and 
of the general way and means by which 
the character can be expressed. One 
grants, of course, that it is asking a great 
deal of the amateur, with his meager tech- 
nical resources, to outline a character at all 
convincingly. Your professional knows 
(or should know!) all the conventional 
tricks of speech and bearing by which at 



Organization — The Cast 41 

least obvious characteristics are revealed, 
and so from the beginning has an advan- 
tage denied the amateur. But the latter, 
if he has any natural sense of stage deline- 
ation, or any realization of the nature of 
his part, will nearly always, however 
crudely and imperfectly, reveal enough of 
it to rank him above or below his rivals. 
If he has the sense of his part, good coach- 
ing will do wonders for him. If he lacks 
it, the best stage manager alive cannot give 
it to him. Look for something positive all 
along the line. 

As a general rule (to leave those stand- 
ards based on natural fitness), it will be 
found most satisfactory to try out candi- 
dates for a play on a basis of their mastery 
of parts similar to those they wish to under- 
take, chosen from some other piece. If, 
for instance, it is intended to present "The 
Rivals," try out the candidates with "She 
Stoops to Conquer." If "The Impor- 



42 Amateur Stage Directing 

tance of Being Earnest" (inevitable pro- 
duction by amateurs!) is the play, candi- 
dates may profitably appear in passages 
from some other of the Wilde comedies. 
Thus a candidate's general ability is tested. 
The man who can play "Tony Lumpkin" 
can probably play "Bob Acres"; a good 
"Mrs. Malaprop" will usually satisfy as 
"Mrs. Hardcastle." 

The field of candidates being reduced by 
• these preliminary trials, one has the pick 
left to compete for places in the real pro- 
duction. 

Since the stage manager has the re- 
sponsibility for the production, and, better 
than anybody else, knows just what values 
he wishes to secure, — knows just how the 
play, like the symphony or the opera, is 
going to be conducted, he should certainly 
have a vote in the selection of the cast. 
And in any case, the board of judges 
should not exceed three. 



Organization — The Cast 43 

It is eagerly hoped that the competitive 
method of choosing a cast will extend more 
and more among amateurs. That it ever 
will be adopted depends almost entirely on 
the spirit with which the work of the play 
is taken up. If only amusement and a 
pleasant fillip to one's vanity are sought, 
there is nothing to be said. One clever 
woman, two or three pretty ones, a couple 
of patient husbands or old bachelors, to- 
gether with a sprinkling of personable 
youths, will suffice for nearly any play — 
of the usual amateur sort. They will all 
be told how well they did, and how funny 
it was when they forgot their lines. They 
will probably wear their costumes at the 
supper and the dancing which will follow 
the performance, and all will be well. But 
if the amateur performers are really 
touched with the notion, now spreading, 
that it is well worth while to make their 
performance approach a very definite and 



44 Amateur Stage Directing 

very worthy artistic ideal, they will be will- 
ing to put aside the traditional amateur 
eagerness for self glorification for the sake 
of obtaining a result really good. And 
any method, competitive trial or other, 
which will bring out native talent, and will 
evidence that a certain actor will fill a 
place better than another, contributes to 
this end very considerably. 

Obviously desirable of establishment in 
schools and colleges which make anything 
of their dramatic work, the competitive 
choosing of candidates serves even better 
in amateur clubs. By checking vanity, 
and dispelling illusions, it will either dis- 
rupt the club altogether or make it all the 
stronger. 

Lastly, it is always well to choose, in ad- 
dition to the regular cast, understudies for 
all the principal parts in the play. The 
understudies should be present at all re- 
hearsals, must be letter perfect in their 



Organization — The Script 45 

parts, and at the time of the performance, 
ready to go on at a moment's notice. 

THE SCRIPT 

The script is the name given to the 
manuscript or printed version of the play, 
as used in rehearsal and all through the 
work of preparation. Little attention is 
usually given to the manner of preparing 
it for the use of amateurs, so a word or two 
of caution regarding it may not be amiss 
in any consideration of the effective and 
economical ways of staging an amateur 
production. 

There are two ways prevalent of pre- 
paring the text of a play for the use of 
members of the cast. Ancient amateur 
precedent leads one to purchase a complete 
text for each actor, — and this is the wrong 
way. An equally venerable custom (of 
the professional stage) limits the pos- 
session of the complete text to the stage 



46 Amateur Stage Directing 

manager; it presents to each actor nothing 
but a copy of his lines and cues together 
with enough "business," as shown in stage 
directions, to show him his successive posi- 
tions on the stage, exits and entrances. 

The latter method is the one which al- 
ways should be employed. With only his 
lines to study and read, the actor is not 
distracted; he can form no independent 
(and possibly mutinous) notions about 
how the play should be conducted as a 
whole. For a while, until probably the 
third or fourth rehearsal, he will not even 
understand how his part in a scene or a 
picture is related to the other parts. His 
condition is very like that of the musician 
in some concerted piece. His score con- 
tains only his own music. For so many 
bars he is told to play ; then he is bidden to 
rest for a certain number of bars. What 
the other instruments are doing is not his 
affair at all. If he works in a kind of igno- 



Organization — The Script 47 

ranee, at the same time he is never con- 
fused. It is also far easier to memorize 
an acting part thus prepared. 

Another advantage which this method 
of preparing the text presents, resides in 
the fact that it gives a free hand and a 
clear start to the stage manager. If he 
alone knows the composition of the various 
scenes, the relations of the characters, the 
values all the way through the play, he 
can move his actors from the very begin- 
ning like so many puppets. He will be 
unhampered by suggestion, criticism, or 
dissent. From the very outset, he can re- 
hearse intelligently and with swift direct- 
ness of purpose. 

It can be argued, of course, that read- 
ing all the text gives a so much clearer view 
to the actors of what the play is all about. 
"It's so stupid, having only my own lines" ; 
"I feel so silly at rehearsal, not knowing at 
all what the others are going to do." 



48 Amateur Stage Directing 

These wails are familiar enough. But is 
it not enough to say, in rebuttal, that the 
best professional usage gives the whole 
text to the manager alone? Suppose all 
the players in a symphony orchestra had 
the complete orchestral score to study their 
parts from ! It is just as absurd for every 
actor in a play to have the complete text 
before him. 

The director, as he studies the text of 
the play, and during the unfolding process 
incident to rehearsal, will write out for his 
own guidance every scrap of business for 
every character ; clear diagrams of the suc- 
cessive tableaux; full directions as to the 
manner of reading speeches; every detail 
of tone or action, which will help him to 
arrange each step of the production ef- 
fectively. Let him remember that the 
action of the play is fully as important in 
developing its dramatic and picturesque 
significance as the words of the characters ; 



Organization — The Script 49 

the action is to the text what the orchestral 
parts of an opera are to the libretto. And 
the stage manager, like his brother the 
musical conductor, must have before him 
an absolutely complete "score." 

When all these annotations are made, or 
even at the beginning of rehearsals, have 
the text typewritten with double spaces be- 
tween each speech, and single spaces be- 
tween the lines of each speech, with the 
names of the characters in any given scene 
printed in the middle of the page (instead 
of at the left hand margin) . If possible, 
use a bichrome ribbon; one color for the 
text, another color for the stage directions ; 
or, if only one color ink is used, all stage 
directions must be underscored in red. 
Stage directions which have to do with 
general movements, exits and entrances, 
important changes of position, and all sig- 
nificant bits of business, together with clear 
indications of the tempo of every scene, 



50 Amateur Stage Directing 

should be written on the right side of the 
page only, in columns or blocks half a page 
wide. Directions for individual charac- 
ters, like those for a certain inflection for a 
certain speech, or for less important bits 
of business affecting only single indi- 
viduals, should be written integrally (in 
parentheses and contrasting color) with 
the speech they accompany. Leave ample 
margins on the typewritten page for the 
changes in business which the experience 
of rehearsals will inevitably suggest. For 
the sake of easy handling and reference, it 
is best to have each act of the typewritten 
text bound up separately. 

For convenient study and handling, the 
parts as prepared for the actors are type- 
written on sheets half the ordinary type- 
writer size, and stoutly bound. The cues 
are written on the right side of the page, 
and consist of as much as four words ; the 
stage directions are printed in connection 



Organization — Rehearsals 51 

with the speeches as in the full sized text. 
All this takes a little time, and perhaps 
entails for a full sized play a cost of twenty- 
dollars at ordinary rates. But the ex- 
pense is more than compensated by the 
ease and speed with which the whole mat- 
ter of study and rehearsal is helped along. 

REHEARSALS 

One further point to be considered in 
connection with the work of preparing for 
the production of an amateur play, so far 
as organization is concerned, is that of ar- 
ranging for rehearsals. 

Perhaps the commonest source of weak- 
ness in amateur productions, other than 
unintelligent training or lack of talent, lies 
in the manner in which rehearsals are 
planned and conducted. Many a play 
fails, after a tremendous amount of en- 
ergy, good will, time, and money have 
been spent in preparation, merely because 



52 Amateur Stage Directing 

those in charge have been ignorant of, or 
have neglected, two or three fundamental 
requirements, of a simple sort, making for 
good discipline. In what follows, no ex- 
cuse is made for a certain dogmatic atti- 
tude; no apology for laying down rules 
and regulations. Less than what is here 
suggested would ensure no results at all, 
save those which luck and the holy angels 
grant to sinners. Wherever the word 
"should" appears, the reader will please 
supply a "must," as better conveying the 
writer's idea. 

Let us suppose the play is chosen, the 
cast selected, and the date of production 
definitely determined. Then the stage 
manager takes command. And his very 
first duty is to draw up, preferably not in 
consultation with his actors, a schedule of 
rehearsal dates, a copy of which is handed 
to each member of the company. Let the 
manager announce, when first the actors 



Organization — Rehearsals 53 

are called together, that the days and hours 
selected for rehearsal are to be considered 
fixtures — engagements to which he and 
his troupe are definitely committed. He 
should say that he expects all other en- 
gagements for the ensuing week to give 
way to rehearsals ; he should assume from 
the outset that everybody in the play has 
enough interest and good will to conform 
to his requirements. Naturally, the man- 
ager will use both sense and tact in pre- 
paring his schedule; rehearsals must not 
be made to appear a burden and a bore 
from the start. Let him find out quietly 
how his company is situated as to their 
other fixed weekly engagements, whether 
business or social. If possible he should 
avoid conflict with social events to which 
many of his troupe are invited or hope to 
be. It is safe to assume that the work and 
fun of preparing the play will not appeal 
to all his actors with equal force. So he 



54 ' Amateur Stage Directing 

may settle his rehearsal periods as not to 
make them onerous to anybody. 

But it must be made perfectly clear that 
rehearsals are engagements which must be 
kept. There must be no leeway for the 
shirker; good and conscientious workers 
must not be hampered by the absence or 
tardiness of others. 

It is probably impossible, in the average 
amateur club or even at a school, to pro- 
vide any acceptable penalty for absence 
or slackness in the matter of rehearsals. 
The rigid system of fines charged against 
the salaries of professionals who absent 
themselves without the very best excuses, 
will not of course apply to amateur com- 
panies; and such penalties as being 
dropped from the cast, and the like, usu- 
ally defeat their own ends. It is far bet- 
ter, and perfectly possible in any group of 
amateurs, to cultivate an esprit de corps 
which makes it the right and reasonable 



Organization — Rehearsals 55 

thing for the actor always to be present. 
Let it be made clear that absences make 
effective rehearsals impossible ; let there be 
cultivated a real desire never to miss, both 
for the sake of the production, which all 
want to make as good as possible, and for 
the sake of the fun which any tactful di- 
rector can get out of the dryest rehearsal, 
if he keeps his wits about him. 

While it is quite impossible to lay down 
hard and fast rules as to the period of 
time necessary to rehearse an amateur 
play, certain general notions as to this 
point may be suggested. Where talents 
and experience vary indefinitely; where 
ideals of the perfection to be attained 
range all the way from those of the mana- 
ger and cast who seriously attempt a pro- 
duction and performance as close to the 
professional as possible, to those which are 
contented and attained when the prompt- 
er's voice is not too often heard and the 



56 Amateur Stage Directing 

girls look pretty in their costumes, nobody 
can say that two weeks is enough or two 
months insufficient. But it may safely be 
said that amateurs, except the very 
crudest, appear to accomplish satisfactory 
results most often, other things being 
equal, when rehearsals do not extend over 
a period exceeding six weeks. A longer 
stretch of preparation is apt to result in 
flagging interest, desultory attendance, 
and encourages the feeling from the start 
that when "the play" is so far distant, 
"there is plenty of time." One inclines to 
the belief that one month is better than 
two. Another set of reasons for an ap- 
parently short period of rehearsal is based 
on the fact that average amateurs can be 
trained to secure only a limited number 
of effects, can realize only a limited num- 
ber of "values." Thoroughly grounded 
professional actors need, paradoxically, al- 
most more rehearsal than amateurs ; when 



Organization — Rehearsals 57 

it is a question of attaining the utmost 
perfection of stage effect, of expressing 
every slightest nuance of meaning or 
picturesque quality, there can be hardly 
too much practice. But with amateurs 
one can plan to accomplish only a few 
things. One may do these things very 
surprisingly well, it is true. But to learn 
them is a matter of a comparatively short 
time. 

What must be carefully observed, how- 
ever, in the matter of planning rehearsals, 
and the time they are to consume, is that 
once begun, rehearsals must come very 
frequently. It will not do to meet casu- 
ally once a week for a while, and then 
scramble feverishly on the eve of the pro- 
duction. Rehearsals should never occur 
less often than three times a week. Dur- 
ing the week immediately preceding the 
public performance, they must be held 
every day. 



58 Amateur Stage Directing 

Furthermore, rehearsals must be long to 
the point of weariness, and a little past it. 
A period shorter than two full hours must 
never be allowed, with work going every 
second of the time. The afternoon re- 
hearsal which is interrupted for tea at five, 
the evening rehearsal at which the hostess 
appears smilingly and casually to inquire 
if the actors "aren't ready to come into the 
dining room," are taboo. Rehearsals 
must mean unflagging hard work. 

STUDY 

Another point to be insisted on in the 
early stages of organizing a good amateur 
play relates to intelligent study. Before 
and during the progress of rehearsals, both 
Stage Manager and actors must make 
every effort to realize and understand the 
period, setting, and circumstances, in 
which the story of the play is laid. Fre- 
quently disregarded on the American pro- 



Organization — Study 59 

f essional stage, the milieu, or environment 
and color, of the play should be a matter 
of painstaking study by the amateur 
player and producer. 

This is not limited merely to an attempt 
at correct costuming and setting. A com- 
plete realization of the spirit of the play 
will affect the carriage and speech of the 
actors. How often do we hear Lydia 
Languish speak in the accent of Broad- 
way or of the Lake Shore Drive! How 
often does a soldier of the Empire carry 
himself like a bank clerk going to 
luncheon ! 

Look at the portraits, the pictures of 
domestic life, of the period and country in 
which your play is laid. Every public 
library, gallery, and museum can help you. 
Get in mind how the people looked. Un- 
derstand clearly the characteristics of the 
rancher's shack, the Puritan dwelling, the 
Bronx apartment, the business office, the 



60 Amateur Stage Directing 

palace, the typical air and manner of their 
inhabitants. Make every member of the 
cast appreciate and faithfully mimic (as 
best he can) the tone and gait of the type 
of character he is to present. One must 
not be content merely to let the people in 
the play be themselves — they must get out 
of themselves. They must not speak the 
language of the play's period and place 
merely by rote; they must not dress in 
mere approximations of the correct cos- 
tume. Let the performance reproduce a 
bit of vivid life; let it catch the spirit of 
the life it undertakes to reproduce. Too 
high an ideal? Hardly, if amateur acting 
and producing is to be made at all worth 
while. 

It is along this line that the educational 
value of studying a play and acting it be- 
comes very evident. This matter of study, 
both of text and of character and of set- 
ting, may be elaborated as far as is 



Organization — Study 61 

thought wise. Schools jump at the op- 
portunity. But it is well to remember 
that a great deal of absurd effort is ex- 
pended on this cultural aspect of the busi- 
ness. One remembers to have seen a rec- 
ommendation to the effect that, preceding 
the production of a play of literary value 
or interest, somebody shall precede the 
performance with a brief lecture on the 
play's content and place in literary his- 
tory ! The recommendation to intelligent 
study here set down has for its object 
merely a better performance — which ap- 
pears, after all, the main business in hand. 



IV 

REHEARSING 
THE DIVISION OF THE TEXT 

The play is selected, the cast chosen, 
the first rehearsal is called, and the work 
of the stage manager starts with a rush. 
From this moment, the actors will look to 
him for direction at every point; he alone 
must solve all difficulties. Tactfully and 
unobtrusively, but very positively, he is to 
keep the reins in his own hands. Even if 
he makes a mistake, he should not correct 
it till he is quite ready. Experience abun- 
dantly proves that it is better to follow 
out even a quite wrong conception of a 
scene's value and purport than to vacillate 
between two or three ways of reading it. 
Uncertainty on the part of the manager 

62 



Rehearsing — The Text 63 

will result very swiftly in a loss of all con- 
fidence by the actors, both in the manager 
and in themselves. But confidence has 
been and won and kept before now by 
even the tone and manner of authority. 

How proceed effectively then toward 
the fulfillment of the manager's really 
complex task, as this will present itself 
during the progress of rehearsals? 

In the first place — and it may appear 
superfluous to ask this till one gets to 
know the run of amateur managers — he 
must study the play with genuine care and 
thoroughness. He must know the play 
better than any of his actors. He must 
come to every rehearsal with a well 
planned campaign in mind; he must be 
prepared, from real intimacy with the 
play, to explain unhesitatingly any point, 
as he understands it, on which a question 
may be raised. The actors have only their 
bare parts; the Stage Manager has the 



64 Amateur Stage Directing 

Whole text ; and the great advantage which 
this arrangement gives him, he should 
maintain carefully. And this he can ac- 
complish only by a study which, before re- 
hearsals have progressed far, will make 
him quite competent to recount if not to 
act each of the various parts. 

For the purpose of really intelligent 
study and rehearsal, it will be found neces- 
sary to divide the text of the play into 
its various component parts. Before re- 
hearsals begin, have clearly in mind what, 
dramatically, are the important moments. 
The habit of the French dramatists, who 
compose a new scene on the basis of the 
entrance of any important character, gives 
us a good example of division, which we 
shall do well to follow out to its logical 
end. Not only do we not study each act 
as a whole — a very common amateur fault ; 
not only do we refuse to consider each 
scene (for the moment) as a unit; but we 



Rehearsing — "Values" 65 

accurately mark off by itself every epi- 
sode, incident, speech or gesture, which de- 
cisively helps to advance the plot, depicts 
character, or affords opportunity for de- 
velopment as a beautiful stage picture. 
Every entrance and exit, every encoun- 
ter of principal characters; individual 
speeches; bits of action of all sorts which 
have color and interest, — as minute inci- 
dents as any of these, all through each act 
of the play, must be treated as separate 
problems and studied each for its own 
sake. This is vitally important. 



"values' 



Only in this way, by careful dissection 
and separate study, will it be possible to 
discover what are technically called the 
play's "values." These, in translation, are 
the scores of opportunities for expressive 
acting, for artistic grouping, for realizing 
the full meaning and measure of the 



66 Amateur Stage Directing 

author's material. It is partly due to the 
amateur's habit of rehearsing great 
stretches of the play at a time that he 
passes heedlessly over "values" which the 
professional would welcome and make 
much of. And while it is impossible for 
the amateur, with his scanty technical 
equipment, to realize all that is presented 
to him, he must take care at least to get 
out as many of these "values" as he pos- 
sibly can. And it is one of the early tasks 
of the stage manager to see these varied 
possibilities, of whatever character, and in- 
dicate them to his company. He must 
make his actors perceive that to read a 
line, make an entrance, leave the stage, 
hand a letter, or play any single bit of 
action, in a given way, is better than to do 
it otherwise. Better, because it will reveal 
more vividly the emotion or f eeling under- 
lying the action; better because it is fun- 



Rehearsing — "Values" 67 

nier; better because it is richer and fuller; 
better because it expresses the fullness of 
the "value." 

Until the players clearly apprehend 
each "value" as the latter presents itself, 
and begin to express it, the prudent man- 
ager will not advance his rehearsal a peg. 
Make the heroine take an entrance twenty 
times, if necessary, "till she gets it right," 
— till she expresses, that is, the dramatic 
value and point of her appearance. Re- 
hearse an inch at a time. It will not prove 
tedious, if properly managed. There is a 
lot of fun, for a really worth while com- 
pany, in finding and expressing "values" 
in unsuspected places. A slight change 
of inflection in reading a speech, a chance 
handling of some object lying on a table, 
may open up whole ranges of interesting 
possibilities for better and richer interpre- 
tation of the play. 



68 Amateur Stage Directing 

EMPHASIS 

It will be apparent enough, on study, 
that the action of each of the little subdi- 
visions of the play is built around some 
central happening — a speech, the handling 
of a weapon, a fan, a letter, perhaps upon 
a single gesture or an attitude. In a 
single instant of time perhaps, or in a very 
brief bit of movement or speech, resides 
the whole point of the incident ; and to this 
focus of interest the attention of the audi- 
ence must be drawn and there fixed. 
These succeeding moments must be played 
with emphasis; they must be given the 
most vivid depiction possible. 

Given good actors, one would fancy that 
this particular problem would be solved in 
advance. To make a point tell would ap- 
pear to be wholly the task of the players, 
not at all that of the stage manager. But 
the experience of even the professional 



Rehearsing — Emphasis 69 

stage testifies that this vastly important 
work of expressing "values" depends, for 
its successful accomplishment, not wholly 
on the skill of the actor, but in a great de- 
gree on the manner in which the actors 
are disposed and moved on the stage. 
Not how they stand and speak, but where 
they stand and speak, is a very serious 
consideration ; and much is made of it here, 
because so many amateur stage managers 
are careless about it. 

For it must be always remembered that, 
to make a point tell, the incident must be 
given a pronounced physical relief. It 
must have the emphasis derived from be- 
ing conspicuous. The audience must hear 
and see it. Whatever else the stage may 
hold of interest at that moment must be 
distinctly subordinated to the emphatic 
and vivid presentation of the really impor- 
tant action. 

The traditional, and usually most ef- 



70 Amateur Stage Directing 

fective way of securing this actual phys- 
ical relief, so very necessary, is to give the 
actors playing the incident a marked meas- 
ure of isolation on the stage. Separate 
them from the others. Do not be afraid 
of giving them a stronger illumination 
than the other less important actors re- 
ceive, for the moment. Let them play 
their "bit," as it were, all by themselves. 
Deliberately withdraw other actors from 
their immediate neighborhood, by sending 
them upstage or into corners, if necessary. 
The attention of the audience must be 
f ocussed and held on one single point ; and 
to this end let the actors carrying the scene 
be made physically conspicuous by every 
means. One must not forget, of course, 
that the arrangement of the characters in 
any stage picture requires a pretty con- 
stant balance ; no part or side of the stage 
should remain unpeopled altogether, 
broadly speaking. Indeed there are 



Rehearsing — Emphasis 71 

many times when the stage will be 
"dressed" as symmetrically, almost, as the 
compositions of the old religious painters. 
But it is also true that this desirable bal- 
ance is not always one of masses. It de- 
pends also on interest and significance; a 
single important character doing some- 
thing important is actually weightier and 
larger, if one may use the expression, than 
a whole crowd of unimportant persons. 
And so, it is perfectly proper, if you wish 
to emphasize the action of one or two im- 
portant characters at any given moment, 
to set them quite by themselves on one 
side of the stage, filling the other with 
twenty lesser personages, if need be. A 
hero facing a mob; Shy lock in the court 
scene; Hamlet addressing the players; 
many another scene of like sort recurs to 
the memory as illustrating the truth that 
a principal character, at any important 
moment, may and should be given all 



72 Amateur Stage Directing 

needful isolation, with no fear of disturb- 
ing the general balance of the picture. 
On making important entrances and exits, 
this physical relief, through isolation, is 
carefully to be sought and arranged for. 
Here, and indeed in general, for this pur- 
pose of making certain persons conspicu- 
ous, the triangle is accepted as suggesting 
the best arrangement in which to group the 
various actors. The apex of the triangle 
is the focus of interest. To this one focus 
all the lines of the stage are made to lead. 

Necessary emphasis through physical 
relief is also secured by playing all impor- 
tant incidents in the foreground of the pic- 
ture. Occasionally the exigencies of the 
story will make it inevitable that a place 
somewhat less conspicuous be chosen; but, 
whenever possible, stage all important 
action well down, on that third of the 
stage which is nearest the footlights. 
Whenever possible, moreover, choose 



Rehearsing — Movement 73 

places somewhat to the right or left of the 
center of the stage (at R. C. or L. C. in 
stage parlance). If two incidents of 
equal interest and closely connected in 
theme occur within the limits of the same 
act, play one at R. C, and the other at L. 
C, for the sake of proper variety, and, 
also, that both sides of "the house" shall 
have an opportunity to see directly in front 
of it one incident or the other. Amateurs, 
if left to themselves, are apt to play too far 
back on the stage. Bring them down and 
keep them there, especially when they have 
anything important to say or do. 

MOVEMENT 

With the play divided up into a series 
of incidents, of dramatic moments, it will 
be seen that the movements of the actors 
about the stage amount to nothing more 
than movement from one tableau or stage 
picture to another. And the sooner this 



74 Amateur Stage Directing 

fact is made apparent to the amateur com- 
pany and heartily accepted as furnishing 
the reason for crossing, going up, and 
coming down, the better. Hamlet, say, 
makes his first entrance in the train of the 
king and queen. This is one incident, 
staged, prepared, rehearsed as a separate, 
single episode. The royal pair mount the 
throne, Hamlet proceeds to his seat oppo- 
site them. This is another incident. A 
few seconds later, he is listening to the hol- 
low and pompous address of his mother's 
guilty consort, — a third incident. And 
the actors are drilled first into such a dis- 
position as will make Hamlet's entrance 
effective; next they are moved to furnish 
a background and setting for the princi- 
pals as they take their respective places; 
finally they move into a formation proper 
for the third of these three typical mo- 
ments of rapidly changing action. All the 
people on the stage, from the star down 



Rehearsing — Movement 75 

to the meanest courtier of Elsinore, make 
no change or movement save those re- 
quired by the exigencies of the play's 
action; the stage is dressed at every in- 
stant to give the important people and the 
important action the necessary physical re- 
lief, and to present a composition which 
is pleasing and effective on the picturesque 
side. In the carefully written texts of 
the modern playwright, and always in the 
script of the good stage manager, the posi- 
tions of all principal actors are clearly pre- 
scribed for every moment they are on the 
stage; and, on study, it will be seen that 
they move only for reasons springing from 
the necessities of the plot. 

The amateur stage manager will find it 
a great help if he directs his actors in their 
movement solely on this basis. The tend- 
ency of all amateur actors is toward rest- 
lessness. They feel, if they stand still, 
that they appear stiff and wooden; they 



76 Amateur Stage Directing 

fear that the scene lacks animation. And 
this is a tendency to be corrected and a 
fear to be allayed, very early in the game. 
Not a step is to be taken on the stage 
which is not required by the action of the 
play. Make your people learn to keep 
still. An aimless change of position, even 
an alteration in the general poise and pose 
of the body, will definitely injure, by blur- 
ring, the sharp impression every instant of 
the play must make on the audience. 
Make the actors keep their hands down, 
their feet from shuffling; do not let them 
sit down or stand up save for some reason 
in the play. Repose must be the object 
sought, — this and the elimination of all 
needless movement of all sorts. The ef- 
fect of this will be that when an actor does 
change his pose, or cross the stage, his 
action becomes significant; there is defini- 
tion and crispness in his playing; his action 
takes on a proper emphasis. The ama- 



Rehearsing — Movement 77 

teur's native nervousness will make the 
enforcement of this rule extremely diffi- 
cult ; but the stage manager must insist on 
it from the start. Remember that it is far 
better to appear wooden than woolly. 

There is one good way of correcting this 
fault of nervous indecision and restless- 
ness, the results of which are so uniformly 
fatal. When a certain disposition of the 
characters in any scene has been found 
after repeated experiments and rehearsal, 
to satisfy all the requirements of emphasis, 
picturesqueness and the play's story, com- 
pel the actors to assume exactly the places 
assigned them, every time they rehearse. 
Settle the matter as early as possible; do 
not attempt too many refinements and 
slight changes of formation (which will 
merely confuse) ; and then have your com- 
pany repeat and repeat not only the 
speeches but also every detail of the action 
and movement without an inch or shadow 



78 Amateur Stage Directing 

of variation. Their positions on the stage, 
their individual poses, the intonation of 
their lines, must come to be taken auto- 
matically. They must get so used to do- 
ing and saying things in only one way that 
any suggested change will dismay and 
shock them. To venture a paradox, one 
rehearses a company into acting intelli- 
gently only by rehearsing them to move 
mechanically. Secondly, as a further 
guard against uncertainty of movement, 
not only must the actors get this idea of 
never varying their play at any given mo- 
ment; but they should be compelled al- 
ways to move across the stage, whenever 
they do move, in exactly one way, by a 
never changing route, in a uniform lapse 
of time, even, if possible, by the same num- 
ber of steps. Experiment will show how 
best to effect the change; and when once 
any best method is adopted, do not vary it 
by a hair's breadth. The doing of the 



Rehearsing — Time and Rhythm 79 

thing thus and so must become instinctive. 
Precision is the aim, clear outlines, bold 
color. And these ends can be gained only 
by a repetition, which is perfectly mechan- 
ical. Improvisation, individual depar- 
tures from what is adopted as the under- 
stood "business" of any bit of action, 
should be, for amateurs, as much out of the 
question as individual initiative on the part 
of the soldier in a parade formation. 

TIME AND RHYTHM 

If you have had the opportunity of 
watching a really first class stage manager 
at rehearsal, it may be that you have won- 
dered at his listening to the actors, as they 
go through a scene, with his eyes closed, 
or with his back turned to the stage. 
Again you will notice, probably with a bit 
of surprise, that very frequently the man- 
ager will beat out a kind of marching 
rhythm — clapping his hands together, or, 



80 Amateur Stage Directing 

more likely, using as a baton his tattered, 
dog's eared copy of the script. And if 
you interrupt that manager during either 
of these two phases of his madness, you are 
courting instant and violent death. Break 
in on him at any other time, — when he is 
laboring with an actor to speak louder, or 
when he is insisting that the electrician 
shall supply some lighting effect which the 
latter swears the switchboard will not 
carry, for instance — and the manager will 
probably answer you, for he lives by and 
in spite of all interruptions. But when, 
with every nerve taut, he is listening to the 
reading of a scene for the purpose of ex- 
actly fixing its time, or is whacking out 
"one — two — three — four," in order to get 
his actors into the rhythm of the scene, 
keep away from him. He is dangerous. 
He is trying to accomplish that which 
many would call his most delicate and diffi- 
cult task. For, if that manager knows 



Rehearsing — Time and Rhythm 81 

anything, he knows that every subdivision 
of the play, act, or scene, must be taken at 
a certain pace, time, and cadence, which is 
constantly changing — now quickened, now 
retarded, but always appropriate. And 
to make even the most experienced actors 
strike, maintain, and deftly change the 
pace deemed right, is work for a man with 
all his wits about him, his most sensitive 
perceptions all awake and on tip-toe. 

But it is work that must be done. It is 
work often neglected, through ignorance, 
by amateurs. The audience at an ama- 
teur play, often the actors themselves as 
well, will feel a sense of oppressive monot- 
ony in the way the play is being done. 
They will try to relieve this by varying 
their tones, the pitch of their voices, their 
manner of playing; they will fall into the 
habit of moving about merely for the sake 
of moving. And they commit many sins 
for the sake, as they hope, of offsetting a 



82 Amateur Stage Directing 

deadly one. But all these efforts are quite 
vain. Variety, and the charm which va- 
riety brings, also the effect of really in- 
telligent reading and interpretation, is 
more often a matter of varying the time 
and rhythm intelligently, than of any other 
device. The feeling that amateurs are 
playing a scene too glibly, or too slowly, 
is always traceable to the fact that they 
have chosen the wrong pace, the wrong 
tempo, as stage jargon phrases it. 

While it is easy enough to insist that this 
question receive the most careful consider- 
ation, it is extremely difficult to lay down 
fixed and workable rules for the amateur 
manager to go by. There will be con- 
siderable divergence of opinion between 
equally skillful directors as to the proper 
speed at which any given passage shall be 
taken. What obtains in the sphere of 
music is equally true on the stage ; one con- 
ductor will read an orchestral composition 



Rehearsing — Time and Rhythm 83 

at quite a different rate of speed than his 
brother or rival, and lacking the author to 
judge between them, who shall say which 
has the best interpretation? Again, 
special circumstances may intervene to de- 
termine the manager to call for a pace 
slower or quicker than usual. But if we 
can agree, broadly speaking, that the char- 
acter of the given passage determines the 
pace at which it shall be played, we are 
on fairly safe ground. We may also 
agree on some other generalizations. 
Thus, it is reasonable to say that scenes 
which tell the play's story, which depict a 
crisis of character, which are full of sus- 
pense either humorous or deeply stirring, 
shall always be taken slowly. Scenes 
which are obviously intended by the play- 
wright, or seized by the actor, as oppor- 
tunities for extended individual character 
drawing, should also proceed slowly. Re- 
call, for instance, the deliberation with 



84 Amateur Stage Directing 

which Jefferson played that memorable 
passage, a classic of comedy acting, where 
as Bob Acres he prepared himself for the 
duel. Perhaps there is no need to specify 
here. Does not every manager know 
from manifold experience that, once you 
turn an actor loose on the stage with a 
good "fat" scene to play, he will never 
leave it till you drive or drag him off? 
Love scenes also, of the delicately senti- 
mental sort, whether tinged with humor 
or with some richer emotional color, come 
easily into the list of leisurely passages ; so 
do practically all scenes of tender f eeling, 
such as those depicting parental affection, 
self-sacrifice, leave takings. In quicker 
time are scenes of bustle and confusion, of 
busy come and go of every sort, whenever 
the stage is full of people, when "things 
are happening" every instant. Scenes 
made up of sketchy character bits, of dis- 
connected incidents depicting activity and 



Rehearsing — Time and Rhythm 85 

life, as in a street, at a railway station, in 
a ballroom, in the lobby of a hotel, are ob- 
viously meant to be played briskly. In 
light comedies, where the close of an act is 
usually a crisis laughable or humorously 
sentimental, it is best to quicken the pace 
all through the latter part of the act up to 
the fall of the curtain. Plays of violent 
action are apt to call for a rapid pace, 
which will be followed by strongly con- 
trasting passages of tense emotion played 
very slowly. The first act of "The Great 
Divide" is a splendid example of this. 
When the situation at the close of the act 
is imbued with deep feeling, exclusive of 
sexual passion, let the pace slacken down 
till the movement is so slight that the slow 
and quiet descent of the curtain will hardly 
be noticed. Hurry a closing scene of this 
description, like that in the last act of 
"Cyrano de Bergerac," for instance, and 
you ruin it forever. 



86 Amateur Stage Directing 

One suggests "slow" or "fast" for this or 
that scene; but it should be borne in mind 
all the time that the two terms are not 
meant to be contradictory but compara- 
tive. Amateurs must be kept at all haz- 
ards from hurrying and gabbling, as most 
of them do, thereby missing one "value" 
after another: they must be drilled to 
maintain a steadiness of pace and cadence. 
No scene can be rushed through. What 
may appear to the actors an intolerably 
slow pace, is often exactly calculated to 
win a response from the audience, will per- 
fectly convey the sense and point of the 
passage across the footlights. A rate of 
speed must always be chosen which is slow 
enough for the actors to act the scene in- 
stead of merely reciting it. Remember 
that more than half of the purport of any 
scene is to be conveyed by the action and 
facial expression of the players. Thus to 
convey a meaning requires an appreciable 



Rehearsing — Pauses 87 

time. Deliberation — not dawdling, which 
is either a slovenly crime or a mark of weak 
wits — means that opportunity is given to 
play the scene "for all there is in it." 
Every movement on the stage must be ex- 
pressive, suggestive, full of color and in- 
terest, made to live. This cannot be ac- 
complished by a mere fluent reading of 
the lines of the play. Slow is the watch- 
word. You can read in an hour and a 
half a play that will require two hours and 
a half really to act. 

PAUSES 

If you decide to play with deliberation 
— not to rush and huddle the action of the 
play, however brisk may be the general 
movement, you will immediately perceive 
that this excellent quality is secured 
mainly by establishing good long pauses 
between many of the speeches. It is true 
that there is no terror, in the opinion of 



88 Amateur Stage Directing 

the amateur, equal to that of having to 
keep silent, save the kindred one of having 
to keep still. Unless he is speaking, he is 
apt to feel lost and wretched, simply be- 
cause he does not know how to act. The 
seconds of his silences appear to him like 
minutes in their duration. Let the man- 
ager insist on proper pauses, and he will be 
bombarded with entreaties and threats 
from those members of his cast who are 
sure they appear perfectly silly. But he 
must stand his ground ; he can meet all the 
worry of his actors by training them how 
best they can demean themselves in the in- 
tervals he has demanded of them. The 
point of allowing these good, marked in- 
tervals of silence is obvious enough. It is 
then that the actor has an opportunity to 
show by his play what is going on in the 
mind of the character he is representing; 
he can do more in the way of genuine and 
convincing impersonation when he is say- 



Rehearsing — Pauses 89 

ing nothing than by the longest set of 
speeches. The play of feeling shows when 
the actor is silent — in his face, in his 
slightest gesture and movement ; it is in the 
silences that you feel the attention of the 
audience riveted to the stage and what is 
going on there. 

The actor with ample resources of tech- 
nique will long for a pause; the amateur 
will dread it. Of course, a mere blank in 
the action would be intolerable ; the coach's 
every effort will be bent on helping the 
actor to fill up the pause with expressive 
action and by-play. And it is perfectly 
true that, no matter how badly they play, 
amateurs who make the best use they can 
of deliberate pauses in the course of any 
scene, will give a richer, and fuller, and 
more interesting performance, than those 
who merely recite fluently. They will ap- 
pear to be thinking their parts. So very 
important is this need of expressive inter- 



90 Amateur Stage Directing 

vals, that one is quite safe in saying that, 
when you coach any amateur play, spend 
thrice the time on teaching the cast how to 
play a silent passage than on drill in read- 
ing lines. 

A simple and practical way of reckoning 
the comparative length of pauses is to 
count beats. If the manager reckons at 
the rate of one hundred counts to the min- 
ute, he will have a tried and accepted basis 
to go on. A little practice with his com- 
pany will fix this "count" in their minds. 
Thus, at rehearsal, if he wishes an actor to 
take a little time before reading some 
speech, the manager will bid him to "count 
five" (say) before he speaks. Often the 
manager will make the count aloud, for the 
benefit of the others. Another character 
makes his entrance (say) after a "count 
of ten." And the pauses, thus mechani- 
cally established, will range in practice 
from "two," as high as "twenty," or even 



Rehearsing — Pauses 91 

(as often happens on the professional 
stage) to "thirty." Getting the general 
idea of the length of the pauses well in 
mind gives an excellent notion of the gen- 
eral speed at which a scene is to be taken ; 
the perfectly mechanical counting will es- 
tablish very solidly what may be called for 
want of a better name the rhythm of the 
scene. For no sooner does a pair of actors 
begin to read a scene with the silences well 
marked and each of the proper duration, 
than they begin to read their lines rapidly 
or slowly, almost unconsciously, in a kind 
of cadence derived from the length of the 
silences they follow or precede. This 
same device of a regular count, or beat, to 
mark the length of the pauses will be 
found of inestimable value in steadying a 
company of amateurs through any sus- 
tained passage. When every actor on the 
stage knows the length of time to be al- 
lowed for any interval between speeches, 



92 Amateur Stage Directing 

he will time his own play accurately, he 
will not get nervous over the fear that 
somebody has missed a cue. Just here be 
it said that the prompter must be perfectly 
familiar with the rate of speed at which a 
passage is to be read ; otherwise, in a panic, 
he will be breaking in with hoarse admoni- 
tions to the heroine when she is purposely 
holding back from reading some speech, 
and so make himself extremely unpopular. 
One word of caution will not be out of 
place at the conclusion of any dissertation 
on timing or pacing a scene. There are 
two varieties of the genus actor, either of 
whom can totally upset the most carefully 
cadenced and flowing passage imaginable. 
And both must be well disciplined from 
the start of rehearsals. One is the dull 
person, with little or no ear and sense of 
rhythm. He it is who invariably reads his 
speeches a shade too slowly or too quickly, 
who picks up his cue haltingly. What 



Rehearsing — Pauses 93 

shall be done with him depends wholly on 
circumstances. Perhaps he has guaran- 
teed the expenses of the show; perhaps he 
is engaged to the heroine. So you cannot 
always risk murdering him without risking 
the success of the play. But any lesser 
penalty, as cruel and unnatural as may be 
deemed appropriate, should be dealt out to 
that offender unsparingly. If he only 
knew how other members of the company 
will come to hate him — ! The other crim- 
inal is the amateur actor who actually is 
talented, or believes himself so to be. 
Give him an inch and he will appropriate 
the whole stage. Once let him "find" him- 
self in a scene which gives him any chance 
to display his ability, and he is sure to take 
all the time he wants, often badly delay- 
ing a passage, sometimes blithely ruining 
it. Here naught will avail but the man- 
ager's authority and tact. Sometimes he 
must surrender, and time the scene all 



94 Amateur Stage Directing 

over again, to fit the "star's" selfishness. 
But it is far better to conquer, even at the 
risk of a pitched battle, and compel the 
"star" to play his bits in time with the 
rest of the action. For, seriously, the 
time, the place, the swing, the cadence of a 
scene is no small thing to trifle with ; it is so 
difficult and delicate to establish, that only 
the most serious and weighty considera- 
tions should be allowed to alter it. 

IN GENERAL 

It is perhaps well, at the first rehearsal, 
to walk through whatever act of the play 
you elect to begin with, book in hand, for 
the sake of letting the actors get some idea 
of the story, and a general sense of what 
are the obviously important scenes of the 
play, as well as the general relations of the 
characters to one another. With the sec- 
ond rehearsal, however, begin to play the 
thing in minute detail. Take up first the 



Rehearsing — In General 95 

"big" scenes, and study these inch by inch; 
take next all the important entrances and 
exits; next every bit of special character 
work among minor characters ; next those 
passages which serve merely as transitions 
from one scene to another. Establish the 
pace of each scene, mostly by determining 
the duration of the intervals between 
speeches, very early. 

It is best, probably, to start rehearsing 
each separate scene or passage with the 
idea of bringing out only the more obvious 
and easy "values." If you try for too 
much at the outset you will get along too 
slowly, and will perhaps bore your actors. 
But later, if you keep in mind always the 
discovery of new and richer "values," and 
get your actors so interested in their parts 
that they too will seek the fullest interpre- 
tation, you will find it very profitable and 
enjoyable too, to read more and more into 
nearly every line. If the time at your dis- 



96 Amateur Stage Directing 

posal for rehearsal is very limited, of 
course you can only "touch the high spots" 
all through the play. Compare the way in 
which a two-a-day stock company plays 
some piece with the manner of its render- 
ing by a really high grade company, which 
has had long months for rehearsal, and you 
will note how the former fails by much to 
extract from the play all there is in it of 
dramatic fare. Amateurs, too, are often 
under severe limitation in the way of 
talent ; the stage manager must judge very 
carefully as to what he can safely get his 
company to do smartly and surely. By 
trying for too much, he may miss all along 
the line. But do not, on the contrary, be 
content with too little — for that is the way 
of the amateur we want not to follow. 

The stage manager must be very strict 
in the matter of getting his actors to re- 
hearse without looking at their books, at 
the earliest possible moment. Depend- 



Rehearsing — In General 97 

ence on the printed text is fatal. After 
two weeks' rehearsing, there should be no 
good excuse for carrying the script in the 
hand. If the actor is continually glanc- 
ing at his book, he cannot possibly do any 
acting; he will learn his lines far faster by 
an effort of memory than by constant 
reading of them. 

Last of all, remember that it is the 
manager with the quiet voice and the 
smooth manner who gets the best results. 
He who helps and suggests is the one who 
wins. He who interrupts all the time, 
who nags, who is sarcastic, is doomed to 
utter failure. Be assured also that stage 
managing a play is frankly very exhaust- 
ing work; and anybody without a good 
steady nerve and a good temper had best 
not undertake it at all. If you cannot 
keep cool, if you cannot retain a tone of 
authority without screaming and bluster- 
ing, do not accept the responsibility. 



V 

THE AMATEUR ACTOR'S A-B-C 

It is far from being the purpose of this 
chapter to essay the probably impossible 
task of reducing even the simplest aspects 
of the actor's art to any set of formulas or 
rules. Within the limits of an elemen- 
tary handbook like this, allowing that 
there is anything one can write down about 
acting, enough will have been said if there 
appears a list of "Don'ts," predicated on 
the shortcomings of the average amateur, 
and some suggestions as to the rudimen- 
tary principles of diction and action. 

THE MENTAL ATTITUDE 

The skilled professional actor is en- 
dowed with or develops a kind of dual per- 
sonality. When he is on the stage, one 

98 



Actor's A-B-C—The Mind 99 

part of him incarnates, through the 
imagination, the character in the play. 
For the time, he actually is Iago, Lear, 
Falstaff, Brutus, Tartufe. The real man 
has projected himself; he is no longer (for 
the moment) Booth, Irving, or Coquelin. 
He is a king, a knave, a braggart, a hero. 
But at the very same time, the actor is — 
never so consciously or keenly — himself. 
He is so acutely self conscious that he 
watches his other half perform; and con- 
versely, his imaginative side never acts so 
effectively as when his real self is alert to 
direct, correct, guide. One may dismiss 
as romance the old belief that a great actor 
is ever "lost in the part." His perform- 
ance, a work of the imagination, plus 
talent for mimicry, is moving and sincere 
and compelling only because his critical 
faculties are at work every minute to keep 
him going — to give form and substance to 
what his fancy has conceived. 



100 Amateur Stage Directing 

But whereas these two sets of faculties 
are, in the case of the great actor, ex- 
quisitely balanced, and work in perfect 
harmony to achieve a fine result, there is a 
large class of amateurs who, with the same 
dual equipment, are quite helpless. The 
balance is not there ; the training is want- 
ing to one side or the other. Either the 
beginner is unable to imagine the charac- 
teristics of the part he may be called to as- 
sume, through lack of that peculiar fac- 
ulty we call sympathy and quick appre- 
hension ; or he is, as it were, dumb, incapa- 
ble of expressing what he feels and knows 
will delineate the character. For the lat- 
ter class there is hope in plenty; all he 
lacks is good technical equipment. But 
beware of the would-be actor who cannot 
conceive, cannot imagine the outlines and 
general look of a character all by himself. 
He is hopeless. He it is who is the 
"stick." 



Actor's ABC— The Mind 101 

In other words, and this probably lies 
at the bottom of all good acting, the 
player must feel his part. He must, for 
the time being, enter into, share, make his 
own, the feelings, passions, mental work- 
ings of the character he wishes to play; he 
is to "sense" the character. This is noth- 
ing that can be taught; it is an endow- 
ment; one possesses it, or one is utterly 
without it. There are fairly competent 
actors who have only a small share of this 
faculty, it is true; it is the fashion to let 
them appear at high salaries; but how 
many of them there are who, in every part 
they assume, retain ever a flavor, a hint, 
a suggestion, of their own personality! 
How few there are who are able really to 
sink themselves, really to impersonate! 
But at least let there be an earnest effort 
to appreciate the part; let the actor ask 
himself continually what the character is 
thinking, what he is feeling; let him en- 



102 Amateur Stage Directing 

deavor, for the moment, to make those 
thoughts and feelings his own. A sympa- 
thetic realization of the character's con- 
tent — that is what we are after. 

Earnestly sought and assiduously prac- 
ticed, this habit or gift of "sensing" char- 
acters will tend strongly to produce in the 
actor the absolutely essential quality of 
acting all the time he is on the stage. It 
must never be forgotten that the instant 
he drops out of his part, even mentally, 
he is as good as out of the play. His part 
in the composition of the stage picture, 
his contribution to the action of the scene, 
must be sustained with perfect faithful- 
ness and unflagging devotion. However 
unimportant, the character he plays has 
a certain value whenever he appears ; and 
this value must be given in full measure. 
In action, let him try his best to get every 
possible ounce of interest and worth out 
of every line and movement ; let him do to 



Actor's ABC— The Eyes 103 

the full what he believes the character 
would do under the circumstances. In 
repose, the same holds good. If he feels 
the amateur's usual discomfort, when he 
is not doing or saying something, and 
feels himself merely in the way, let him 
keep right on, acting harder than ever. 
That will cure his nervousness. Out- 
wardly, this attitude of mind, in repose, 
will show itself by intelligent attention, 
perhaps, if the actor is listening or watch- 
ing. He will really and truly listen to 
what the other actor is saying; he will 
support the other by letting the effect of 
the other's words show in his face and 
bearing. He will show his attention also, 
by not letting his eyes wander. 

THE ACTOR'S EYES 

This matter of the actor's eyes is very 
important. It ought to be brought to the 
amateur's attention early. He must 



104 Amateur Stage Directing 

learn and appreciate the great truth and 
principle that whether he is in the center 
of the stage or a humble super in the 
Roman mob, he is to use his eyes with the 
very greatest care. Remember that the 
eye is the most expressive feature. 
Without the slightest aid of speech or ges- 
ture, the movement of the eyes — lowering, 
closing, raising, dilating — may be made 
to convey the most varying emotions with 
tremendous vividness. It must be 
drilled and drummed into the beginner 
on the stage that any uncertainty of re- 
gard, any shifting of the eyes aimlessly, 
will absolutely kill any speech the char- 
acter may be delivering. Let the eyes 
wander, and straightway it looks to the 
audience as if the actor's mind was wan- 
dering. A steady regard means concen- 
tration. A regard deliberately shifted 
signifies, with vivid clearness, a change of 
mind or feeling. Watch the eyes of any 



Actor's ABC— The Eyes 105 

good actor; note how steady they are. 
He speaks more pointedly and eloquently 
with his eyes than with his lips. 

This counsel, that the actor shall act 
every minute — that he shall have in mind, 
without interruption or intermission, the 
one great task of impersonation, the as- 
sumption of the character's feelings and 
traits — lies at the foundation of all rules 
set for his guidance. Till he can give a 
sense of vitality and reality to the charac- 
ter by the use of his imagination, there is 
not much gained by drilling him in how to 
move and speak. Train the actor to ob- 
serve types of character, and to watch 
their external manifestations ; train him to 
imitate these as faithfully as possible — 
to mimic. This is the point of departure. 
What comes later is not much more than 
acquired skill in presenting his impersona- 
tion in public effectively. 



106 Amateur Stage Directing 

MOVEMENT 

A few hints as to the proper control and 
use of one's members on the stage, a word 
or two on how the voice may best be em- 
ployed, — externals, but things necessary 
to learn if one wishes to appear with a 
fair degree of ease and grace, — will not be 
amiss, in any chapter intended for begin- 
ners, though it is desired, above all, to 
impress on the amateur the great necessity 
of conscientious effort at impersonation. 

In another place will be found a dis- 
cussion of the broad principles which gov- 
ern general movement on the stage, in- 
tended for the stage manager who 
watches the rehearsal from "out in front." 
We saw there all general movement on 
the stage is governed entirely by the ne- 
cessities of the action, and proceeds from 
one grouping arranged for one special mo- 
ment of time, to another, arranged for a 



Actor's A-B-C — Movement 107 

succeeding moment. A similar principle, 
it is believed, should strictly govern the 
movement of each separate actor. 

It must not be forgotten that every 
least movement of the actor's body or 
limbs or head or eyes (and this applies to 
the least important character) has a 
double effect: (1) it has an important 
bearing on the composition of the stage 
picture; (2) it is always taken by the audi- 
ence as having a meaning connected with 
the plot of the play, as revealing charac- 
ter, or as emphasizing some special emo- 
tional or picturesque effect. This is true 
because every action and movement of 
every actor is vividly apparent in the bril- 
liant light of the stage — nothing goes un- 
seen ; and it is also true, because the audi- 
ence assumes (and must be let to) that the 
people on the stage are really people in 
the play and nobody else. So each slight- 
est gesture, change of position, or change 



108 Amateur Stage Directing 

of pose, must be carefully thought out. 
The aimless movement confuses — worse 
than that, it dims the general effect of the 
scene. And this is quite as true for the 
individual as it is for the whole company. 
Here, as there, good counsel would ad- 
vise no movement without a meaning. 

Conversely, unless the actor has some 
definite purpose in moving,, he is to remain 
absolutely still. This is extremely diffi- 
cult to teach to amateurs ; but it is an ideal 
which should be diligently striven for. 
Repose is vitally important, because here, 
as elsewhere, any movement must be made 
significant. Good actors move about the 
stage very little. Even in a bustling, 
lively farce, there is less running here and 
there than appears. Good actors are very 
sparing of their gestures. And so, when 
they do cross the stage, stand up, sit, 
stiffen, relax, turn, advance, draw back a 
step, — do anything, in short, their move- 



Actor's A-B-C — Movement 109 

merit arrests attention instantly. If con- 
trasted sharply with a prevailing repose 
and repression, the turn of a head, a sud- 
denly clenched fist or leveled finger, a 
dawning smile, the closing of the eyes, will 
tell a whole story, will reveal a thought or 
a feeling with absolutely unerring ac- 
curacy and the greatest vividness. 

It should be obvious, however, that the 
actor must work very hard to choose, in 
every case, a gesture or an expression 
which will be unmistakable in its meaning. 
It must be decisive, illustrative, vivid. It 
can admit of no doubtful interpretation. 
Here the amateur will need lots of study 
and care. What gesture, what expres- 
sion, does most vividly convey the feeling 
in question? It is the problem which the 
actors in the moving picture plays have 
to deal with, and solve also ; it is what all 
good players of pantomime understand 
thoroughly. It may be helpful to many 



110 Amateur Stage Directing 

amateurs who are in doubt as to what ges- 
tures, what alteration of the features, best 
convey a certain meaning, to learn all they 
can from the play of the "movies" actor. 

Once an actor's personal play in any 
single moment is decided on and adopted, 
there should be the greatest hesitation in 
changing it in any way. Once rehearsed 
and found satisfactory, it becomes almost 
immediately a part of the fabric of the 
play. Other actors will look for it; its 
duration will become a very important 
consideration in the timing of the whole 
scene. 

Speech follows action, on the stage. 
Contrary to the practice of the orator, who 
uses his gestures merely to enforce his 
words, the actor should proceed on the 
principle that his lines merely amplify and 
illuminate the suggestion clearly conveyed 
by his play. Thus, in practice, if move- 
ment or gesture is desired with any speech, 



Actor's A-B-C — Movement 111 

let it precede the spoken word by a very 
little. 

Amateur actors commonly believe that 
the attention of the audience is riveted to 
their hands. To dispose of those most un- 
comfortable members appears a very 
great problem. But the truth is, that it 
is vastly more important, from every point 
of view, that the actor shall have a care 
about his feet. The way an actor stands 
is what people in the audience really no- 
tice. And a word of caution may be de- 
sirable here, since we are talking about 
very elementary matters. Everything re- 
quires that, when the actor is standing still, 
he must stand absolutely still. Just as 
his eyes must not stray vaguely, so his 
bootsoles must be screwed to the floor, 
when he is not moving. He may retain 
any pose for only a few seconds, but once 
placed, he is to stay planted. 

If the actor is standing obliqued to the 



112 Amateur Stage Directing 

audience, the upstage foot is that which is 
to be advanced. 

On entering from either side, let the up- 
stage foot take the first step in. 

Kneel on the downstage knee; if you 
drop on both knees, let the upstage knee 
sink to the floor the last. 

A general caution also as to the distri- 
bution of the weight would advise that at 
all times, when he is in repose, the actor 
shall be in such physical balance that he 
can leave his position and assume another 
gracefully, and without any effect of shuf- 
fling or indecision. He must take off 
cleanly, as a runner would put it. The 
good actor has a kind of crispness and 
alertness in his bearing, an easy and flex- 
ible balance ; he moves with precision. 

GESTURES 

As to gestures, what can be said? Only 
this, perhaps, in this chapter : Avoid, un- 



Actor's A-B-C— Gestures 113 

less you are deliberately trying for an ef- 
fect of awkwardness and angularity, any 
gestures with the arm held and moved 
stiffly. The sweeping, circular gesture is 
still the most picturesque and the most 
sightly. Maybe an illustration will help 
explain this principle. Suppose you de- 
sire to pick up a letter lying on a table at 
your right, and then hand it to a person 
standing on your left. Many amateurs 
will instinctively pick the letter up in the 
right hand, retain it, and extend the same 
hand to the other person half turning 
the body to do so. This is wrong, tech- 
nically, from a good many standpoints. 
The movement is awkward in itself; it 
tends to hide your face from the audience 
at a moment when interest is awake; it 
causes you to gesture with your downstage 
hand and arm. A far better way would 
be to pick up the letter with the right 
hand; change it to the left; and then ex- 



114 Amateur Stage Directing 

tend the left hand to your fellow actor, 
the movements of either hand to be such 
that each describes the arc of an ellipse. 
Always point, gesticulate, beckon, and 
the like, with the upstage hand and 
arm. 

THE STAGE EMBRACE 

Finally, what chapter of this sort would 
be complete without a reference to that 
moment trying yet thrilling, for amateurs, 
which is enlivened by the "stage embrace"? 
Awkwardly taken, it leads only to em- 
barrassment and rage on the part of the 
actors, to shrill merriment on the part of 
the audience ; but smoothly and easily en- 
gineered, it brings the curtain down tri- 
umphantly. Briefly then, if the hero and 
the heroine — as in who shall say how many 
hundred plays? — are standing center, with 
their profiles turned to the audience, let 
the man slip his downstage arm under the 



Actor's ABC— The Voice 115 

girl's, while her downstage arm encircles 
his shoulder. The man's upstage arm, on 
the side away from the audience, is placed 
outside the girl's. But it is with the up- 
stage arm that he draws her to him. 

Only a very few matters are taken up 
here ; it must be clearly understood that we 
have attempted to discuss only the most 
rudimentary principles of stage deport- 
ment. But if the amateur will try to act 
all the time, stand still except when the 
action of the play requires him to move, 
keep his balance, and be consistent in what- 
ever "business" he undertakes, he will have 
at least made a start. 

THE VOICE 

A few fundamentals of proper reading 
are very necessary for the amateur to 
learn; and these are quite within his reach. 
They may be insisted on by the stage 
manager fairly. 



116 Amateur Stage Directing 

The actor must enunciate clearly; by 
which is meant that every word and syl- 
lable shall be well shaped and spoken so 
as to be heard distinctly. Skillful read- 
ing, which gives the true value to every 
slightest inflection, is probably out of the 
reach of the average amateur; he is too 
badly handicapped, generally speaking, by 
native habits of slovenly speech. But the 
cruder sins of faulty elocution, such as the 
blurring of consonants and queer perver- 
sions of vowel sounds, should not be toler- 
ated even in the least pretentious com- 
pany. The latter crime consists in giving 
to all the vowels a sound most like that ex- 
pressed by a short "u." Thus, "Amur- 
rican," "Yurrup," "Englund," "Unly," 
"Urgunt," "umung," "goun' " (by which 
such innocent and worthy words as Ameri- 
can, Europe, England, only, urgent, 
among, and going, are intended), are on 
the lips of all slovens; and, while such 



Actor's A-B-C—The Voice 117 

vocables are bad enough in daily speech, 
they become, on the stage perfectly in- 
tolerable. They give any actor a stamp 
of commonness instantly. Worse, their 
use makes it hard for the actor to make 
himself understood. Similarly, we must 
insist on a crisp and resonant pronuncia- 
tion of the final consonants. It may be 
that any special care bestowed on -nd, 
-st, -ng, and their fellows, above all 
when the next word begins with a con- 
sonant, will appear to the actor extremely 
affected, and will have the effect of slow- 
ing up his facility and ease of speaking. 
But this is not the case, in reality. Keep 
at it, till any temporary inconvenience is 
overcome, for the gain is simply immense. 
An actor should not be slovenly and lax 
in his manner of speech, any more than he 
should lounge and slump in his bearing. 
Care in these two regards will do away 
with the danger, probably, which results 



118 Amateur Stage Directing 

from running words together by the elision 
of last or first syllables. 

Effective enunciation is also, very 
largely, a matter of proper breath sup- 
port, and of the formation of the sound by 
the proper vocal organs. Unfortunately, 
it is probably the case that not one ama- 
teur actor in a hundred will have any op- 
portunity for instruction and drill in these 
branches of voice culture; certainly the 
duty of the stage manager for any given 
production can hardly extend so far. But 
the actor should realize, and the manager 
must show, that, while the stage does not 
demand loud speech, it does require a 
solid resonance of tone. Let the amateur 
practice assiduously the trick of deep 
breathing and of slight expenditure of 
breath for any sound. Let him shape each 
vocable very carefully as he pronounces it, 
even though, at first, he seems to himself 
to be exaggerating absurdly. 



Actor's A-B-C—The Voice 119 

One often hears it laid down as a rule 
that the actor's voice must be directed to- 
ward the audience. An inheritance from 
the old, declamatory stage; a convention 
established when the construction of the 
stage demanded that it be observed; this 
obiter dictum of the older generation of 
managers is to-day not so universally 
obeyed. Probably amateurs are too 
strictly bound by it. To direct the voice 
outward, all the time, is very apt to give 
the effect of stepping out of the scene, of 
unreality, of declamation. It is best, 
probably, that the actor shall consider first 
the sense and the necessities of the scene 
he is playing — addressing the other actors 
rather than the audience. For, by dex- 
trous arrangement of the people on the 
stage, it is nearly always possible to com- 
bine an effect of natural interchange of 
speeches with the necessity of making the 
audience hear every word. There is per- 



120 Amateur Stage Directing 

haps one exception to this general, loosely 
interpreted rule. Every speech which ex- 
plains some point vital to an understand- 
ing of the plot of the play should be read 
in such a way that, even at the slight risk 
of unnatural attitude and intonation, the 
whole of it is given straight to the specta- 
tors. But, in general, it is probably better 
to have the actors speak from such posi- 
tions as they naturally assume in the course 
of the play's action. This will have one 
excellent effect, at all events; it will very 
neatly checkmate the actor who is not 
happy unless he is playing straight to the 
audience, for the sake of catching the at- 
tention and applause at all costs. 

Since this special kind of sinner is usu- 
ally found among those actors who play 
broad character parts, with good oppor- 
tunities for fun-making or tear-winning, 
this paragraph is written mainly for their 
benefit. Playing a character part, if there 



Actor's ABC— The Voice 121 

is any dialect to it, or any very marked 
physical trait, becomes a pitfall indeed, 
and a straight road to utter failure, unless 
the actor in the part sustains the oddity of 
speech and bearing consistently. This is 
no easy task, — how many times has this 
comment been made already in these 
pages ? — but it simply must be carried out. 
The character actor cannot "let down" an 
instant. 

For that matter, neither can any actor, 
playing any part. It will doubtless be 
found that, for many amateurs, the in- 
creased resonance of tone demanded, to- 
gether with the effort to enunciate clearly, 
will tend to make the actor's voice take on 
a tone and quality a little different from 
that of his ordinary speaking voice; nat- 
urally enough, also, almost any part will 
color one's natural voice a little, in itself. 
So, if this does happen, let the actor be 
quite sure that he is going to sustain his 



122 Amateur Stage Directing 

new voice all through the play. To lose 
it, and to revert to his everyday manner 
of speaking, will give the effect of the 
actor's stepping clean out of the character 
he is impersonating. 

TEAM WORK 

A good deal has been made, all through 
these chapters, of the point that the suc- 
cessful performance of any play depends 
very largely on the completeness with 
which all the parts are made to move to- 
gether toward a common end. For one of 
the players to fail to do his share pur- 
posely, from bad temper or mere shiftless- 
ness, is certainly no less a crime than for a 
performer in an orchestra to play out of 
tune and time. Not speaking of the 
stupidity and selfishness of being lazy or 
sulky, inattentive or officious, it is enough 
to call the actor's attention to the fact that, 
if he does not play his part just as well as 



Actor's A-B-C—Team Work 123 

he can, if he does not conform scrupulously 
and willingly to the limits imposed on him, 
he will go far toward ruining the produc- 
tion. It is no exaggeration to say that in 
any well balanced performance, every 
actor depends absolutely on his fellows; 
with one part awry, the whole crumbles. 
Suppose you do dislike the leading lady; 
what if she is pretentious; suppose it is 
true that she got her part only through 
personal "pull" with the management? 
Never mind. Support her in all the 
scenes you play with her, as if her success 
was your dearest wish on earth. You can 
easily ruin her part; you can make her 
appear foolish; you can make her ex- 
tremely unhappy, merely by forgetting or 
maiming your own lines so that she has no 
cues to follow; you can be listless when you 
should be animated; you can fail to "play 
up" in any of a thousand ways, and so 
work all manner of satisfactory revenges 



124 Amateur Stage Directing 

on her for any sort of grievance. And 
this is sweet. But at the same time, sir, 
you are utterly spoiling the play, and that 
is pretty hard on the other people playing 
with you. The same result, ruin, is 
achieved most successfully, when you take 
more time than is right for your pet bits 
of action, when you deliberately play for 
applause, when you lounge through a part 
you do not fancy, when you cut or alter, 
without consulting anybody, some speech 
that may not please you. All this demor- 
alizes a cast completely. Not knowing 
what you are going to do next, they will 
get uncertain of their own lines and parts, 
and the play will go straight to pieces. 

No, no, team work is the thing. Per- 
haps that is where the alleged educational 
value of amateur theatricals comes in. 
Subordination, concession, enthusiasm for 
small opportunities, modesty on being as- 
signed responsibilities, eagerness to work 



Actor's A-B-C—Team Work 125 

for a single ideal which is not selfish but 
common — surely all these qualities are 
called for and developed in any group of 
amateurs, if they undertake even the 
simplest play of all. If one cannot work 
for the common good, if one cannot obey 
orders without question, one were better 
off the stage altogether. One hears the 
taunt that the only excuse for "private 
theatricals" is the vanity of the actors, who 
wish to parade themselves before the eyes 
of their indulgent friends, and get ap- 
plauded for their supposed cleverness. 
Try to make sure that in your case, at 
least, this is not justified. Try working to 
make the "show" just as successful as you 
possibly can. It is a lot more satisfac- 
tory. 



VI 

MAKE-UP 

How many amateurs take pains with 
their make-ups? Not but what the ma- 
jority are persuaded that some measure of 
paint and powder is necessary, if only for 
the reason that "professionals always do," 
or for the other reason that the roses and 
lilies of the toilet table are thought re- 
liable friends when nature has been nig- 
gardly. But while it is easy enough, even 
in Puritan communities, to get the girls to 
use a dab of rouge and a flick of the eye- 
brow pencil, while the men — much vainer ! 
— are usually amused by sticking on false 
whiskers or cramming on ill fitting wigs, it 
is often very difficult to get a company of 

126 



Make-Up — General 127 

amateurs to take their make-ups seriously. 
They have trouble in understanding that 
their make-ups will either contribute a 
great deal to the general artistic value of 
the play, or will go far toward spoiling 
it altogether. We all recall those tradi- 
tional last minute scrambles, when one or 
two perspiring and desperate volunteers 
try to make up a whole line of excited, 
nervous actors, — when spirit gum refuses 
to stick, when the hard worked rouge pot 
gives out, when, after all, it is perfectly 
and discouragingly obvious that the Old 
Man of the play, in spite of his gray wig 
and weird whiskers, is not a day over 
twenty-five, when — but why retail more of 
a familiar and harrowing experience? 

But it should not be difficult to avoid at 
least the more obvious mistakes and diffi- 
culties. Let us see if we cannot find some 
general principles and simple directions, 
which will help a little to get good results. 



128 Amateur Stage Directing 

For it is to be understood — is it not? — 
that making up has to be taken rather 
seriously, after all. 

At the bottom of the matter lie three 
considerations. 

In the first place, the actor appears at a 
distance from the spectators. In a theater 
seating a thousand persons, or more, the 
actor is anywhere from fifteen to fifty feet 
away from his audience. Removed in this 
way, he is to remember that his features 
look insignificant and indistinct. Profes- 
sional actors and actresses, in most cases, 
have well marked, rather accentuated 
features — the arch of the eye socket, the 
spring of the nose, the modeling of the 
chin, and the lines around the mouth, are, 
in the case of practically every man or 
woman whom nature has suited for the 
stage physically, remarkable for their 
boldness and purity. "The actor's face" 
is a perfectly recognized type. But while 



Make-Up — General 129 

the play of such strongly marked features 
may be observable enough even at a dis- 
tance, helped as it is by trained muscles, 
there is not a professional living, however 
well endowed in this particular, who does 
not accentuate by every means in the 
power of his make-up box, those traits he 
may possess. How much more careful 
then must the amateur be, with his (usu- 
ally) more softly modeled features, to 
build and color till his smile and scowl are 
perfectly apparent to the backmost rows 
in the house ? Here again we have to note 
the inevitable slight exaggeration of na- 
ture necessitated by stage conditions. 

Furthermore, not only does the actors 
distance from the audience affect the mat- 
ter of make-up, but also the fact that he 
plays in a direct glare of artificial light, of 
a character and intensity very different 
from that of nature, — a light by which his 
natural complexion appears pale and 



130 Amateur Stage Directing 

pasty, his features smaller than natural, 
and his eyes sunken. 

It is also to be noted that the lighting 
system obtaining generally in the theaters 
(though a tendency is at work to change 
this) brings about an illumination which 
frequently completely reverses the effect 
of natural lighting — bringing shadows, 
that is, where lights exist by day. The 
portions of the face naturally shaded, such 
as the space between the eye and the brow, 
the underpart of the nose, below the chin 
and jaw, below the under lip, are brought 
by the f ootlights into brilliant relief, while 
the forehead, bridge of the nose, cheek- 
bones, upper lip and chin, usually the best 
lighted parts of the face, tend on the stage 
to become shadowed. The footlights, that 
is, illuminate from below; and the illumi- 
nation of the footlights is that which 
mainly controls and underlies the whole 
stage system of lighting. Only the intel- 



Make- Up — General 131 

ligent use of paint can remedy this pal- 
pably absurd condition. 

As has been said, perhaps the common- 
est fault of amateurs in this regard is to 
use too little make-up. It is too often as- 
sumed that, for young people, all that is 
needed is a dab of rouge, a line of black 
on the eyebrows, a little powder, and a 
touch of scarlet on the lips. It is piously 
believed by the inexperienced that, given a 
gray or white wig, three perpendicular 
lines between the eyebrows, three more at 
the outer corners of the eyes, two more 
from the wings of the nose to the corners 
of the mouth, and one across the forehead, 
will give a perfect illusion of old age. 
The frightful and unearthly visages con- 
trived for character and comic parts by 
the amateur make-up-man need no com- 
ment at all ; one merely shudders recalling 
them. What happens when people made 
up in this sketchy fashion face the audi- 



132 Amateur Stage Directing 

ence? However pink and white and 
pretty the girls look at close range, in the 
glare of the stage light their faces become 
merely red and white masks; their eyes 
lose all brilliancy, all definition of outline, 
retire, become mere black dots ; their noses 
become startlingly retrousse; the whole 
facial contour becomes disturbingly un- 
natural. In the case of those imperson- 
ating old people, such hasty tracings as we 
mention above give no illusion of wrinkles ; 
they are plainly streaks of paint. Too lit- 
tle make-up is almost worse than none at 
all. Its only use is to tickle the audience. 

It will be asked immediately: What 
requirements, then, shall we call really ob- 
ligatory in this matter of make-up? 

The minimum necessities, both of ma- 
terials and of labor, to make actors look 
human, and in character, under a strange, 
fierce light, are those detailed herewith. 
And it should be believed that even the 



Make-Up — General 133 

simplest amateur play, if it is proposed to 
make it at all worth while, will need every 
one of these apparently fussy aids to a 
good performance. Amateur actors and 
managers simply must realize the fact that 
good and complete make-ups cannot be 
improvised, executed hurriedly, or neg- 
lected in any least detail. 

It is best, of course, for every actor to 
have his own make-up box; a slight ex- 
penditure will buy enough grease paint 
and other necessities for many a play, and 
the stuff will not deteriorate when stored. 
But if this is impracticable, every member 
of the cast must have access to the follow- 
ing supplies : 

Cold cream 

Cocoa butter 

Grease paint, blonde flesh 
" brunette flesh 
" yellowish flesh 



134 Amateur Stage Directing 



Grease 


paint, 


sunburn 


a 


a 


ochre 


u 


u 


white 


66 


u 


gray 


it 


« 


blue 


a 


« 


carmine 


66 


cc 


crimson 


Lining pencil 




Crape hair 




Spirit gum 




Powder 


(white, pink, brunette) 


Rouge 






Cheesecloth 




Powder 


puff 





With these articles spread out before 
him conveniently, the amateur should be- 
gin his task, seated if possible (for the 
work will take a little time) , before a mir- 
ror which is brilliantly lighted. If pos- 
sible, these make-up mirrors should have 
the electric light bulbs set in the frames; 



Make-Up — Body Color 135 

and amber bulbs should be mingled with 
the white ones in the proportion of about 
one in three. If all this rigging is im- 
practicable, at least be quite sure that the 
mirror gets a glare of light from some 
source direct. It is a good plan for women 
to cover their hair with a cap of some 
sort when they make up; it is easier to 
dress the hair after the face work is fin- 
ished. 

Rub the face and throat thoroughly and 
lightly with cold cream, which will make 
the subsequent application of the grease 
paint easier. Wipe off any excess with 
soft cheesecloth, so the face will not ap- 
pear shiny; and it is sometimes well, at this 
point, to apply very lightly a little flesh 
colored powder. 

BODY COLOR 

Then apply the grease paint. There is 
a very wide selection possible here, as the 



136 Amateur Stage Directing 

paint is made in colors suitable for every 
kind of "body color" or basic complexion 
tint, from the pale pink-and-pearl of the 
young blonde to the ochreish ivory of old 
age; from the ruddy tan of the outdoor 
man to the pasty white of the invalid. 
Choose very carefully, for this application 
will be the prevailing color of the skin. 
Lay the paint on in wide streaks, heating 
the stick a little, if necessary, to make the 
paint flow easily and quickly; then with 
the tips of the fingers gently spread and 
blend, till the face, ears, eyelids, and neck 
are completely coated. The space below 
and behind the ears is often neglected, also 
the upper eyelid ; so have good care in this 
regard. The grease paint on, dust the 
face over again with some powder. 

ROUGE 

Next comes whatever red you wish to 
apply. It will be seen that any of the 



Make-Up-— Rouge 137 

grease paints, even the ruddiest, tend 
strongly to make the skin look yellowish, 
and this, for some complexions, must of 
course be in a measure neutralized. Let 
it be remembered also that, in nature, the 
forehead always appears lightest in color 
and more yellow, than any other part of 
the face; that the lighter reds appear on 
the sides of the nose, just below the cheek 
bones, and on the cheeks above the line 
from the nose to the corner of the mouth ; 
that the heavier tones appear lower on the 
face — on the jaws and around the chin. 
Just under the eyes, the skin has often a 
very transparent, pale purplish tone; the 
ears (in health) are usually redder than 
other parts of the face. In general, go 
carefully in the matter of rouge ; it is easy 
to use too much and so make the face look 
patchy. Use just enough to brighten up 
the prevailing sallow hue of the grease 
paint; and apply it so that it blends into 



138 Amateur Stage Directing 

the rest of the face color imperceptibly. 
Be very careful about using any red near 
the eyes. This is a very common amateur 
fault. The rouge is applied too high on 
the face. The effect of this is to make the 
eyes look very small; and it gives a 
curiously distorted, pinched look, hard to 
define, yet painful to look at. Lay the 
rouge mostly on the lower part of the 
cheeks. An old and fairly reliable guide 
in the matter is to grin as wide as you 
can, at the same time puckering up your 
eyes, which will bring your cheeks up into 
high relief. Use no rouge higher than the 
top of the exaggerated curve of the cheeks 
thus emphasized. The heavier red of a 
man's complexion will have to be rendered 
by more grease paint, rather than with 
rouge, which is too delicate and transpar- 
ent a material, except for women and 
young people. And say to yourself again 
and again, every time you touch the rouge 



Make-Up— The Lips 139 

box — "Most amateurs use entirely too 
much of this." 

THE LIPS 

Next make up the lips. If you wish 
to retain the natural shape of the mouth, 
simply cover the lips to their outer edges 
with carmine, with a touch of crimson on 
the upper lip. If you wish to improve on 
nature, draw the line of the lips as the 
heart and taste dictate, remembering only 
to make the upper lip fuller in the middle 
than in the corners and to color it a little 
darker. A tiny triangle of carmine placed 
just at the corners of the mouth and above 
them will make a mouth look ready to 
smile; to make a mouth droop at the cor- 
ners, or to give the effect of enlarging it, 
continue the natural downward curve of 
the lips with a little carmine, blue, or 
brown. A pouting expression will be 
helped by a touch of blue or gray just in 



140 Amateur Stage Directing 

the middle under the lower lip, to give the 
effect of a shadow. 



THE EYES 

The eyes will take more time than all 
the rest put together. Remember aU that 
has been said as to their importance ; that 
they are the most expressive feature. 
This implies that they shall be given good 
definition — they must be framed, as it 
were; their natural shape must be a little 
accentuated; for special purposes, the 
shape must be a wee bit distorted by the 
deft way in which lines are drawn about 
them. Be it said that one need have no 
fear of injuring the eyes in any way by the 
proper use of grease paint and lining 
pencils. The girls who drop a little bella- 
donna in, to make their eyes more brilliant, 
are of course taking chances ; but the aver- 
age amateur can use all the paint and pains 
in the world around his lids and lashes, 



Make-Up— The Eyes 141 

and suffer nothing but a lot of work get- 
ting it all clean again. Probably the first 
task in connection with the proper 
make-up of the eyes is to increase their 
apparent size. This is best done by care- 
fully blackening the upper lashes (not the 
edge of the lids, be it understood) ; then 
by continuing a little the natural outward 
slope of the upper lid with a lining pencil, 
very lightly handled; then by shadowing 
(with gray or blue) the outer and inner 
curves of the lower lid, very delicately, 
with a faint trace of black on the line of 
the lower lashes. Place a small but very 
vivid touch of brilliant carmine at the 
inner corner of the eye. At the highest 
part of the curve of the upper lid, just un- 
der the arch of the eye socket, do a little 
more shading with blue or gray — the point 
of this being to neutralize the effect of the 
footlights which, oddly enough bring this 
naturally shadowed part of the face into 



142 Amateur Stage Directing 

the highest relief . Treat the eyebrows as 
the character requires — delicately arched, 
fiercely contracted, eliminated altogether. 
It will give an oddly humorous cast to a 
face, oftentimes, if the outer ends of the 
eyebrows are slightly elevated; a prevail- 
ing anxious look is helped by elevating the 
inner ends of the brows. It is well to have 
in mind the old drawing school dictum that 
the shape of the eye socket is, on last 
analysis, a triangle. Shifting the apex of 
this triangle a trifle to one side or the other 
will result oftentimes in the most extraor- 
dinary changes in the whole cast of the 
countenance. It is perhaps unnecessary 
to caution the amateur about getting these 
lines about the eye as close to it as is hu- 
manly possible. And, once more, take 
plenty of time. The make-up of the eyes 
is perhaps the most important and difficult 
of all, — whether you wish them luminous 



Make-Up— The Nose 143 

and large, or mere slits (for which do none 
of the things recommended above), or to 
represent illness and fatigue (for which 
use a bit of gray or blue to accentuate the 
line of the natural hollow below the eye) , 
or to help out the general effect you wish 
any special character to give. Remember 
that the light you appear in is very bright, 
that any slips or imperfections will be re- 
morselessly shown up; that the eyes will 
give immediately the first suggestion about 
the character, on that character's first en- 
trance. 

THE NOSE 

To alter the natural shape of the nose, 
use the putty which comes for the purpose. 
This can be molded to any shape between 
the fingers, and is to be applied before the 
grease paint is put on. A bold line of 
white down the bridge of the nose will 
make the nose look straighter and longer. 



144 Amateur Stage Directing 

LINES AND WRINKLES 

Any actor playing the part of a very 
old person ought to study very carefully, 
from life or from photographs or other 
representations, just where the wrinkles 
and lines of age run, and what is their 
general shape. Remember that it is the 
look of the throat which perhaps best be- 
trays age — the prominence of the heavy 
cords and muscles there ; and the knotted, 
bony hands of the veteran must also be 
carefully indicated. Gray or blue, very 
carefully applied, should be used to simu- 
late the hollows of the temples and the 
cheeks ; and take great care that these hol- 
lows are in right place anatomically. In 
drawing all wrinkles or other lines, re- 
member that if you play in a pinkish or 
amber light, the tracings will appear espe- 
cially deep, while a white or blue light will 
tend to soften them. In any event, use 



MaJce-Up — Wigs 145 

brown or blue for these lines, never black. 
When the make-up is finished, it may be 
found necessary to dust on a little more 
flesh colored powder, if the face looks at 
all shiny. 

AS TO WIGS 

If it is necessary to use a wig, take great 
pains that the line of junction across the 
forehead is entirely obliterated, which can 
usually be helped by carrying the base 
color over the edge of the wig. Take 
great pains that it fits snugly around the 
back of the head and over the ears; and 
dress it very carefully to lie smooth and 
tight. The wigs one gets from most cos- 
tumers are shockingly ragged and long 
haired; they make the best looking hero 
appear merely comic. One cannot take 
too much pains in selecting wigs that shall 
fulfill the double duty of suggesting the 
character and fitting the actor snugly. 



VII 

THE STAGE AND THE SCENERY 

The disadvantages under which most 
companies of amateurs give their perform- 
ances are so many and so formidable, 
that one often wonders how they attain the 
success they often do attain. Improvised 
stages, ill designed and ill fitted costumes, 
inappropriate scenery, very bad lighting 
— against all these obstacles the amateur 
contends blithefully. Most frequently he 
simply ignores the obstacles ; and perhaps 
this is a mercy, for if he realized his handi- 
caps, he might not run at all. But the bet- 
ter way, one may venture to think, is 
frankly to recognize the difficulties of a 
mechanical sort in the way of the manager ; 
to learn what are some of the really indis- 

146 



Stage and Scenery — Size 147 

pensable requirements in the matter of 
scenic investiture; and to try very hard, 
for the sake of the play, to live up to them. 

THE DIMENSIONS OF THE STAGE 

Most amateur plays are produced on 
far too small stages. Perhaps the old 
fashion of "private theatricals" in some- 
body's drawing room is responsible for 
the continuance of the habit of staging 
even pretentious plays, oftentimes, under 
conditions of space which are really im- 
possible. There may be a dozen reasons for 
this convention; but there are a hundred 
better reasons for breaking with it at every 
opportunity. Schools which take their 
dramatics at all seriously ought to use the 
greatest care, in building new auditoriums 
with a stage, that the latter is something 
more than a platform suitable for a con- 
cert or an address. Unless plays are to 
be only semi-successful as artistic produc- 



148 Amateur Stage Directing 

tions, the actors must have plenty of room. 
On the small stages, too often deemed ap- 
propriate for non-professional players, 
there is quite lacking all opportunity for 
the free and slightly exaggerated move- 
ment so necessary for pictorial action, for 
using the wider range of the voice, for 
handsome grouping, for the proper isola- 
tion of certain actors or bits of action. 

With no wish to be too exacting, one 
may ask that the stage shall measure not 
less than twenty-five feet across the pro- 
scenium arch; not less than fifteen feet 
from the line of the drop curtain to the 
scenery closing in the stage at the rear 
(and for exterior scenes a depth of twen- 
ty-five feet is very desirable) ; while in 
height, from the floor to the flies, the 
stage should measure fourteen feet, at 
least. It should be understood that these 
dimensions are actually considerably less 
than obtain on professional stages of 



Stage and Scenery — Size 149 

average size; and, if it is objected that 
the amateur "feels lost" on any but a 
small stage, the answer is to train him 
to feel at home on a good one. Perhaps 
it will be quite impossible to get these 
minimum dimensions for some stage se- 
lected, or imposed, for an amateur play. 
With the best hopes and intentions in the 
world, the company may find itself con- 
strained to a small space. In that case, 
try very hard to contrive as much depth 
and height as possible. Depth will give 
an opportunity for free movement, will ob- 
viate the necessity of having all movement 
on the stage practically a series of cross- 
ings from one side to the other; and, in 
the case of any exterior scene, will make it 
possible, through proper lighting, to give 
a certain illusion of distance and atmos- 
phere which is out of the question on a 
shallow stage. Height gives a sense of 
space and airiness; height frames the pic- 



150 Amateur Stage Directing 

ture at the top with a good clearance, and 
in good proportion above the heads of the 
people in the composition. 

THE SCENERY 

The stage of fairly small size does, how- 
ever, offer one sole attraction to those wise 
enough to take advantage of it. Almost 
inevitably a cramped space will impose on 
the manager and others responsible for 
scenery and accessories the practical neces- 
sity of setting the scene simply. 

Simplicity! If every amateur stage 
manager would let that quality dominate 
and pervade every detail of his scenic in- 
vestiture, what a lot would be gained! 
For it is unquestionably true that the use 
of simple scenery — the pursuit of the 
modern ideal of the best minds in the 
theater — accomplishes much for the edu- 
cation in taste of those who build it, and 
of those who look at it from the audience. 



Stage and Scenery — Simplicity 151 

It is extremely difficult to "make come 
right" ; there is required to decide its color, 
texture, and lighting, a sound artistic per- 
ception ; much of the theory and history of 
decorative design has to be learned before 
a stage setting can be made exactly ap- 
propriate to the period, place, and char- 
acter of the play for which it is con- 
structed. Modern scenery is called 
"simple" only because it departs rather 
radically from the fussily elaborate and 
often horribly designed scenery of other 
(and present days) . 

The ideal of the scene painter and 
builder of the new school is, in a word, that 
stage scenery shall not try to be exactly 
representative, but vitally suggestive. It 
is believed that scenery and settings have 
accomplished their proper purposes when 

(1) they furnish a suitable and beautiful 
and harmonious background of color, and 

(2) they suggest unerringly, but with no 



152 Amateur Stage Directing 

superfluity of detail, the character of the 
surroundings in which the action of 
the play transpires. Until very recently 
artists and carpenters have followed that 
line of endeavor which aims to make 
scenery and accessories as true to life as 
possible; they have faithfully tried to 
create an illusion of actual, physical life. 
Every ingenious device of lighting, all the 
trained skill, all the talent of artists, his- 
torical students, and craftsmen, have been 
employed to make a stage setting look real. 
And though much has been accomplished 
which is both beautiful and wonderful, the 
fact remains that these artists have never 
quite fulfilled their aims. Save as they 
have pictured certain interiors and made 
them look solid and substantial, they have 
produced effects, when the very best has 
been done, which are far indeed from de- 
picting even an approach to reality. Of 
illusion there is very little ; most often it is 



Stage and Scenery — Simplicity 153 

absent altogether. The counterfeit of 
wall or tree or distant landscape, so long 
supplied by painted surfaces of lath and 
canvas seems, after all, a vain thing, rather 
childish, a convention which one wonders 
has been so long accepted. An awakened 
and steadily broadening sense of truth and 
fitness in the art of the theater, a feeling 
that a different set of conventions will 
bring setting and action into truer rela- 
tions, have made possible abroad the ex- 
periments of Craig, Bakst, Reinhardt, 
Barker, and the other prophets of the new 
gospel. 

A little has been tried here in America. 
Presently we shall have much more of 
the new scenery — in those centers and 
on those stages where taste dominates, 
and novelty and truth are thought worth 
endeavoring after. We shall have sets of 
scenery which are stripped of all frippery 
and pseudo-reality, which are reduced to 



154 Amateur Stage Directing 

the task of supplying a beautiful color set- 
ting — gorgeous and fantastic, sober and 
cool, as the character of the play and the 
scene may demand. Instead of a throng 
of objects on the stage, in the way of 
furniture and furnishings, which were for- 
merly placed there laboriously with the 
idea that such things made the scene look 
life-like (even though the walls waved in 
the draughts), we shall have very few 
properties, and these all perfectly designed 
to suggest by their shape and color the 
place and the time and the nature of the 
play, as well as possessing an intrinsic in- 
terest of their own. 

Applying theory to practice, one will 
ask what can be done, by the hard pressed 
amateur, with the battered and frayed sets 
of stock scenery, of garish color and 
atrocious design, which are now dragged 
forth to set the interior scenes alleged 
to represent a drawing room, cottage, 



Stage and Scenery — Interiors 155 

boudoir, office or castle? If it is agreed 
that we are to be discontented with the 
scenery and settings usually supplied ama- 
teur productions, because these are usually 
exceedingly ugly, because they create no 
illusion, because they often jar badly with 
the general spirit and content of the play, 
how can we proceed to adapt them? 
Lacking a designer of original scenery, 
lacking the means of building it, can we 
make anything at all out of the material at 
hand? 

Well, let us see. Certainly, any re- 
sponse on the part of the amateur to the 
call of the newer teachers in matters the- 
atrical is something to be encouraged in 
every way. 

INTERIORS 

Let us consider what can be done with 
interior settings, since these form by far 
the largest part of the scenes played by 



156 Amateur Stage Directing 

amateurs. Not hurrying too fast, let us 
suppose that for a while to come, amateurs 
will be constrained more or less to follow 
established custom, and try for the look of 
reality, for representation. The very fact 
that they have to use the frames and 
"flats" and "borders" already in stock will 
keep most companies from trying Gordon 
Craig or Bakst effects. And so, granting 
this, it should be said that interiors may be 
helped greatly to taking on the look of 
reality by careful attention to the building 
of the doors and windows. Probably the 
illusion of solid construction is destroyed 
most often, in interiors, by the obvious 
flimsiness of the lath-and-canvas doors and 
the painted door frames. Now at very 
small expense, you can have a light wooden 
frame built into each doorway opening, in 
which a genuine wooden door can be hung, 
with all its gear of hinges, knob, latch, and 
lock complete, — a door that can be 



Stage and Scenery — Interiors 157 

slammed noisily, a door which opens prop- 
erly. Any house-wrecking firm or dealer 
in second-hand building materials can sup- 
ply such doors ; indeed, nearly every house- 
hold has an old one collecting dust in attic 
or cellar. And the slight expense in- 
volved in having it painted, fitted, and 
hung, is more than justified by the real 
value such a fixture has for all who desire 
their stage settings to be decently ade- 
quate. In the matter of windows, it is 
well to have weighted sashes, properly ar- 
ranged to open and shut, and hung in a 
good solid frame. The frames, in both 
cases, will steady the whole wall of scenery, 
and help to prevent its flapping and shak- 
ing. Whenever possible, be sure to use a 
solid ceiling instead of the rows of drop 
borders commonly substituted. This will 
not only "look better," but will act as a 
kind of sounding board for the voices of 
the actors. It is hardly necessary, in this 



158 Amateur Stage Directing 

day, to insist that room walls shall be made 
of "flats" of scenery joined at the edges, 
and built all round the stage so as to box 
it in completely. All interiors to-day are 
so constructed; the old-fashioned "wings" 
are rarely seen. For the sake of breaking 
the monotony of straight walls along the 
sides, it is well to cut off the upper corners 
where they meet the rear wall diagonally, 
if possible. This will contract the stage 
a little, but is worth trying, if only for the 
sake of using up two useless bits of space. 
Similarly, it is not a bad idea to build a 
little projection in the side walls about 
half way back, the rear part of the room 
represented being thus a little narrower 
than that part down in front. But neither 
of these devices is to be employed unless 
permitted by the proper architectural con- 
struction of such a room as is being repre- 
sented. Remember, in setting your stage, 
that the passage from the scene to the 



Stage and Scenery — Interiors 159 

space behind the scenery which leads off 
just behind the drop curtain and in front 
of the sides, is never available as an exit. 
Remember that every door and window 
must be appropriately "backed," with some 
scenery which will carry out the idea of 
another room, a terrace, a view, or of the 
naturally adjacent space whatever it is. 
Attention is necessary here, to judge from 
the stage setting of many amateur plays. 
Doors should be a little larger than the 
stock sizes put in dwelling houses gener- 
ally, both in height and width, whenever 
possible. 

As to the treatment of the walls, it is 
possible that nothing need be done at all. 
With access to a good theatrical store- 
house, and plenty of money to pay charges, 
you may be able to rent scenery which has 
been painted by somebody with taste and 
skill, and therefore sufficient. But if you 
have to use the scenery already on hand in 



160 Amateur Stage Directing 

the town hall, the local "opera house," or 
the school, as is the case with most ama- 
teurs, some radical treatment will have to 
be devised to make it even tolerable. 
Probably it is best to cover all its ugliness 
and dinginess as quickly as you can. The 
owner probably will not let you paint it 
anew, so use burlap, silkalene, unbleached 
cotton, or any cheap material, and tack it 
smoothly to the flats, or if the character 
of the play will allow it, drape the material 
in soft perpendicular folds. The ma- 
terial must be dyed the color your taste 
decrees as most suitable to provide a back- 
ground for your scene — gay, somber, 
drab, or brilliant, a color which will echo 
and accentuate the general tone of the 
whole play. Only a word of caution is 
necessary here. Avoid red, since this is 
unrestf ul and too strong a color ; avoid any 
bright color which will obtrude itself un- 
duly ; avoid blue, since this is a very tricky 



Stage and Scenery — Exteriors 161 

color to manage by artificial and changing 
light. Generally speaking, the various 
tones of brown or gray will prove most 
satisfactory for this background of 
scenery. A very simple stencil design, 
sparingly used in the frieze or about the 
doors and windows, will supply all neces- 
sary decoration. Windows and doors, in 
all domestic interiors, may have curtains 
of appropriate material, rich or simple, but 
always of the plainest pattern and weave. 
These will supplement and contrast with 
the prevailing tone of the walls, and have 
a certain decorative value of their own. 

EXTERIOR SCENES 

Thus, the handling of interiors is com- 
paratively simple. It reduces itself 
chiefly to an intelligent effort to produce 
an effect of simplicity, unobtrusiveness, 
and appropriate color. But when one is 
confronted with the problem of designing 



162 Amateur Stage Directing 

and executing exterior scenes, one meets 
a problem which the very greatest modern 
stage designers and craftsmen have not 
yet solved to their own satisfaction. In- 
telligent opinion of all shades is agreed 
that the best efforts to produce a success- 
ful illusion of natural landscape, with the 
light, color, atmosphere, and texture all 
rendered faithfully, — a landscape which 
composes at all with the human element 
and action represented by the actors, have 
practically failed. Beautiful effects of 
light and color abound; but, when all is 
done, the forest, desert, street, garden, 
orchard, or seacoast, remain palpably 
paint, canvas, papier mache, and plaster. 
Long ago people agreed to believe that for 
the purpose of the theater this counterfeit 
should be accepted; and the toil of hun- 
dreds of skillful men has been expended to 
make the counterfeit appear, each year, a 
bit more like the real thing. But behold a 



Stage and Scenery — Exteriors 163 

generation which says that it will no longer 
accept or even find curious and interesting 
even the cleverest substitute. A public is 
growing up to say: "Away with all this 
painful and hopeless struggle to make 
paint and plaster pass for the living 
tree and the ancient rock. Let us end a 
deception which deceives nobody. Let us 
really 'make believe.' Let us use our 
imagination a little." The most keenly 
active and intelligent managers have be- 
gun, as everybody knows, to work along 
this line in their designs and construction. 
With great simplicity, but with bold draw- 
ing, definite effects of light, and a few 
carefully chosen constructed shapes, they 
suggest the locality of an act. They use 
symbols only. They give just enough to 
supply decoration, and to let the imagina- 
tion play freely. If one lets himself re- 
call, say, those features of the Mohamme- 
dan city he has seen or dreamed of, how 



164 Amateur Stage Directing 

much, or how very little, flashes up from 
the welter of confused impressions and 
half -recollections ? A white wall, a min- 
aret, an oddly shaped arch, a blazing 
sky. A few things, clear and definite, 
typical and suggestive — only essential 
things — compose this or any other recol- 
lected scene, when first it flashes back to 
one. And it is on the basis of this trutK 
that the new school proceeds. Success is 
not yet complete ; the laws and the rules of 
this new method of stage decoration are 
not yet established or formulated. Per- 
haps, as yet, it is little more than an ideal. 
But, unquestionably, it proceeds on right 
lines; and it is a theory of scene-making 
with which amateurs will presently have to 
reckon. At least one enterprising and 
courageous amateur manager has already 
made some interesting and valuable ex- 
periments, has achieved also some beauti- 
ful effects, in this line of endeavor. De- 



Stage and Scenery — Costumes 165 

siring once, for example, to set the stage to 
represent a garden, he quite discarded the 
scenery supplied him of the conventional 
sort, and set up merely a background 
painted in the cool colors of a northern 
sky, against which he placed bold groups 
of native cedars, with screens of vines to 
mask the entrances at right and left, with 
a wall fountain as the center of interest. 
And the scene possessed vigorous char- 
acter and great charm, properly lighted. 
One cannot too strongly recommend the 
amateur generally to make experiments in 
stage decoration and suggestive or sym- 
bolic setting, of a like sort. Effort of that 
sort will prove a large part of the edu- 
cative value of any active work in the 
drama or the theater. 

COSTUMES 

Consideration of the problem of cos- 
tuming a play belongs in this part of the 



166 Amateur Stage Directing 

little book, because the dresses and accou- 
terments of the players should always be 
designed and chosen in connection with the 
design and color of the scenery. Pro- 
jected against the quiet background, they 
become very important as lending the 
brightest notes of color on the scene. 

Does it appear like an argument sup- 
porting the obvious to insist that stage cos- 
tumes shall be both correct and beautiful? 
The professional stage is hardly open to 
any general criticism on this score. The 
efforts of the artist and the historical 
scholar have been combined again and 
again to produce effects in this depart- 
ment which are beyond all criticism. But 
the hapless amateur, once more the victim 
of adverse conditions, seems almost com- 
pelled by an irresistible fate to commit 
blunders in the matter of costume which 
are painful when they are not laughable. 
Laughable, because so very often a man's 



Stage and Scenery — Costumes 167 

costume makes him look the ass he feels 
himself to be; painful, because they are 
usually selected from a costumer's stock 
at that worthy's confident direction, and so 
are too often wholly incorrect in design, 
shabby and tawdry in appearance. 

A very serious effort should be made to 
obviate all this ; to make the costuming of 
a play one of its very best features. Cos- 
tumes should be (1) correct in cut and 
color for the period or the character they 
are intended for; (2) properly fitted and 
adjusted; (3) carefully considered in re- 
gard to their mutual values as color. 
When all these points have been looked 
after, what genuine enjoyment costumes 
give! How satisfied the actors are! 
How beautifully the dresses decorate the 
stage! Best of all, perhaps, from one 
point of view, any well costumed amateur 
play means hours of real enjoyment and 
worth-while study over the fascinating 



168 Amateur Stage Directing 

books of historical costume and design in 
the libraries and the pictures in the gal- 
leries. In the books about former days 
and ways, in the pictures of old time peo- 
ple, one makes the oddest and most pleas- 
ant discoveries, one begins most charming 
acquaintances; one gets a store of quaint 
knowledge of the clothes, the fal-lals, the 
habits, tastes, and whims, of many ancient 
worthies and gallants all interesting, all 
picturesque. 

It should be remembered that what may 
appear very small defects and inconsisten- 
cies in the dressing room, when the costume 
is being tried on, will become grossly ap- 
parent and perhaps a sure source of mirth 
or grief to the audience, when paraded in 
the glare of the footlights. Let us recall 
two or three of the commonest lapses of 
this sort. 

A very common trouble is that rented 
amateur costumes are too small, with too 



Stage and Scenery — Costumes 169 

short sleeves, or too narrow shoulders, or 
dangerous to sit down in. Be sure that 
any error of this sort is corrected early. 
If the actor is uncomfortable and un- 
happy, good-by to any thought of success 
in his part. 

Another frequent blemish on an other- 
wise satisfactory costume is the introduc- 
tion of some modern detail — using costume 
here in the sense of an old time dress 
or habit. Men will very commonly, and 
with disastrous effect, wear an everyday 
collar inside the starched ruff of the Eliza- 
bethan age, inside the falling collar of 
the Puritan, the elaborately folded "steen- 
kirk" of the Cavalier, the tall neck- 
bands of the eighteenth century, or the 
satin stock of later years. They will wear 
a collar of unmilitary cut with a uniform. 
They will retain a beard or a mustache, 
when playing a character in the age of 
smooth faces. Both men and women are 



170 Amateur Stage Directing 

let be careless as to the kind of shoes 
they wear in costume plays, though any in- 
consistency or anachronism in one's foot 
gear, for some reason or other, is espe- 
cially apparent on the stage and quite de- 
structive of all proper effect. Select the 
shoes for any costume play — cothurn, 
buskin, sandal, boot, or slipper, with the 
utmost care. Modern shoes, however 
flimsily disguised with a false top or a 
broad buckle, simply will not do. 

Minor slips, which can and must be cor- 
rected, involve an ignorance of or a care- 
lessness about the conventional way of 
wearing certain kinds of clothes. Mili- 
tary uniform, ecclesiastical vestments, 
court dress, servants' livery, cowboys' 
neckerchiefs, peasant dress, — these cos- 
tumes or parts of costume, to cite only a 
few familiar examples, are all worn ac- 
cording to fixed regulations or established 
custom; and so they must be worn on the 



Stage and Scenery — Costumes 171 

stage. Carelessness here will rob the play 
of a special quality which no other virtue 
can quite replace. Fidelity means con- 
versely an added and a very real charm. 
It will give an actor a certain feeling of 
"being more in the part," also, if he feels 
that his costume is absolutely correct and 
suitable, as well as easy and comforta- 
ble. A good costume will often give 
an actor just the extra zest and "zip," 
which his work at rehearsal has somehow 
lacked. 

If it is intended to make the costumes 
for a play iri home workshops — which has 
both decided advantages and obvious 
perils, the makers should be quite sure that 
they have excellent patterns to go by, and 
they must be carefully directed by one re- 
sponsible supervisor to prevent any inde- 
pendent judgment in the matter of colors. 
It should be remembered also that very 
expensive materials are usually wasted. 



172 Amateur Stage Directing 

The stage light is such, and the distance be- 
tween the actor and the audience is so con- 
siderable, that substitute materials are 
perfectly allowable, and much to be en- 
couraged. All that is necessary to re- 
member is that, in using a substitute for 
velvet, satin, brocade, leather, fur, or any 
other costly stuff, be sure ( 1 ) that the sub- 
stitute, when draped, will fall into the same 
folds and take the same lights, as the 
original; (2) that its general character, as 
a textile, is very similar to the more ex- 
pensive weave. 

THE LIGHTS 

The relative values, and the commoner 
functions, of the various sets of lights on 
the stage, must be thoroughly understood 
by the stage manager ; and while the ama- 
teur stage can rarely enjoy the advantages 
of the splendid equipment of the better 
modern theaters, it should be the resolve 



Stage and Scenery — Lights 173 

of everybody responsible for the produc- 
tion of the amateur play that it be given 
under as good conditions of lighting as is 
in any way possible. Do not economize on 
the electrician. Get him to install just as 
much of a complete system as you can pos- 
sibly manage, if only for a very few per- 
formances, if you have at heart the real 
success of your play. And arrange for a 
great many rehearsals of the general and 
special lighting arrangements, so that on 
the evening of the play, there will be no 
awkward hitches, no possibility of the sun 
rising, or the firelight beginning to glow, 
some minutes too soon or too late. 

It is thought well here to enumerate the 
various conventional parts of the stage 
lighting system, as we have it in all the 
good theaters, with the idea that, if it can- 
not be adopted in its entirety, at least the 
most necessary parts thereof can be ar- 
ranged for. 



174 Amateur Stage Directing 

Under the usual plan, the direct illumi- 
nation of the stage is provided by the foot- 
lights, aided more or less by the spot lights. 
The footlights are set along the front 
of the stage, outside the drop cur- 
tain, the full width of the proscenium, 
usually in a shallow trough so that their 
dazzle will be screened from the eyes of the 
audience. Ideally, the footlights are ar- 
ranged in three banks, each of a different 
color (white, amber, blue), each with its 
own switch and dimmer, for ease in 
manipulation. But as such elaboration 
will hardly be possible for school or dra- 
matic club uses, it will be enough if there is 
provided a continuous line of bulbs, set 
the width of the stage, spaced about eight 
inches on centers, amber bulbs alternating 
with the white in the proportion of about 
one in three. This will give a warm but 
not too garish a light. If the play de- 
mands a moonlight effect, or any cold light, 



Stage and Scenery — Lights 175 

it will be necessary to employ blue bulbs 
mingled with the white, and the amber 
bulbs must be switched off when the blue 
are being used. The spotlight, placed in 
the rear of the house, is intended to throw 
a special illumination, of some particular 
color, on the whole stage or any part of it, 
or on some special actor. Often absurdly 
abused, the spotlight can be made very im- 
portant indeed, by producing delicate 
effects of color and warmth, by giving 
the actor or the bit of action a necessary 
momentary prominence. When a whole 
battery of spotlights is used, as in a big 
theater, it is often possible for a capable 
manager to devise for every important 
actor his own special, and changing nuance 
of color and degree of illumination — the 
light in which he plays subtly and imper- 
ceptibly seconding and echoing the general 
meaning of the character he impersonates. 
One spotlight, however, should always be 



176 Amateur Stage Directing 

made available for a good amateur play, if 
more than one is out of the question. 

The direct and vivid illumination cast by 
the "foots" and the "spot" would cast the 
shadows of the actors against the scenery, 
were it not counteracted. This is pro- 
vided for by the border lights, an abso- 
lutely essential feature of even the simplest 
equipment. Set in rows, each about half 
the width of the stage, just back of the top 
of the proscenium arch and behind each of 
the flies or drop borders, with brilliant re- 
flectors, the border lights must be kept in 
very delicate balance with the footlights. 
Too strong or too feeble an overhead light 
will result in curious shadows and fore- 
shortenings on the stage. 

If it is desired to illuminate special re- 
stricted areas of the stage from the sides, 
recourse is commonly had to the so-called 
bunch lights. These are not installed as 
fixtures, but are set on standards and can 



Stage and Scenery — Lights 177 

be moved about as necessary, connected up 
with plugs in the floor of the stage back of 
the scenery. They are used to produce ef- 
fects of sunrise or sunset, of moonlight, of 
firelight from a hearth, for instance. The 
changing colors often necessary in this 
kind of illumination are produced from 
the bunch lights by passing films of gela- 
tine colored in reds, yellows, blues, or 
violet tones, before a flame of carbon or 
calcium. 

Strip lights are short sections of bulbs, 
detachable and capable of being placed in 
any part of the lighting system, to produce 
an intensified or special illumination. 

Remember, in general, that all white 
bulbs will make a very garish light. It is 
safe as a rule to tone down this white glare 
with a proportion of amber colored bulbs, 
especially for interior scenes. The bor- 
der lights, however, can safely be left all 
white. 



178 Amateur Stage Directing 

If a play has to be given with the very 
strictest economy and under conditions 
which make any elaborate installation of 
lights impossible, the management must 
provide as the minimum requirement (1) 
a row of footlights, running the entire 
width of the proscenium arch, with a re- 
flector of white painted tin; (2) strips of 
border lights, with bright reflectors, behind 
the top of the proscenium and behind each 
piece of scenery suspended from above, 
and behind each "wing" or border, if this 
arrangement of scenery is used, instead of 
a boxed-in set. Footlights alone will 
never do; (3) a "dimmer," by which the 
intensity of the illumination can be con- 
trolled by handling a switch. 



"back stage" 



The following is a list of miscellaneous 
hints and cautions intended for those very 



Stage and Scenery — General 179 

important personages, the stage carpenter 
and the property man. They are in- 
tended to cover some of the commoner 
problems arising out of the setting of the 
stage and the needs of the action in most 
plays. 

Doors in scenery are made convention- 
ally to swing inward, toward the stage. 
This arrangement has become established, 
possibly, from the belief that it affords the 
best means for emphatic and effective exits 
and entrances. 

Window glass can be simulated by 
sheets of the galvanized meshed material 
used in making screen doors, cut to the 
proper sizes. Be sure that it is bright and 
new; old screening is useless. 

As far as possible, avoid the use of pic- 
tures on the walls of interior sets. They 
are rarely effective as a decoration, looking 
"spotty" and bad in color, and are a great 



180 Amateur Stage Directing 

nuisance to handle quickly in shifting 
scenes. 

If the action of the play calls for a mir- 
ror, and this must be hung in a place where 
it will reflect the audience, place a sheet of 
tin or zinc over its face. 

Use no chairs or other seats less than 17 
inches off the floor. Lower seats are hard 
to get into, and worse to leave. 

Push buttons and electric switches 
should be placed in the wall about shoul- 
der high. In this way the actor can reach 
and touch them with a graceful rather than 
an ungraceful gesture. 

Always cover the stage with a heavy 
crash or tarpaulin, laid perfectly smooth, 
of any dull neutral color for interiors, of a 
brownish green for exteriors. 

Thunder, by a venerable convention, 
may still be simulated (at least on the 
amateur stage) by shaking a piece of 
sheet iron. Lightning, if the theater's 



Stage and Scenery — General 181 

equipment is meager, can be approximated 
by winking high power tungsten lamps 
before reflectors. 

Rolling clouds of smoke can be ren- 
dered by steam on which red and yellow 
light is played. 

The effect of blood from a wound is pro- 
duced by glycerine mingled with a crim- 
son dyestuff. 

Snow on the garments of a character 
can be simulated best by applications of 
wet salt, just before the character makes 
his entrance. 

Wine is best made from cold tea. Re- 
member that ginger ale or any other "soft 
drink," used for this purpose, will some- 
times play tricks with one's throat and 
vocal organs for an instant after drinking 
it, and so is risky. 

A little electric stove, connected up and 
hidden in the cottage grate or old time fire- 
place, is very useful, if the play requires 



182 Amateur Stage Directing 

the use of hot water or a bit of cooking. 
"The real steam" of the tea kettle, the real 
scent of toast or bacon, will please the 
average audience more than one would be- 
lieve possible, and will contribute a little 
also to the verisimilitude of the scene. 
Similarly, any bit of homely, domestic 
routine, like setting a table, serving a meal 
or a drink, opening the mail, to choose ran- 
dom examples, should always be faithfully 
presented in all its details, supposing that 
the effect of reality is being aimed at all 
through the production. This has to be 
judged very carefully. Sometimes any 
very slight excess of realistic detail will 
jar terribly. Here, as always, one has to 
think of the play as a whole, even when 
studying the smallest details. 

To shift the scenes expeditiously, a 
pretty perfect system is necessary. Re- 
member that it is a great mistake to let the 
entr'acte intervals be more than ten or (at 



Stage and Scenery — Shifting 183 

the outside) twelve minutes in duration. 
Smartness and speed in handling are es- 
sential; and these depend on establishing a 
well articulated movement of the carpen- 
ter's crew and that of the property man. 
If you are dependent on amateur and 
green assistance in this very important de- 
partment, do not fail to rehearse the set- 
ting and striking of every act several times 
before the performance. 

The first thing to do is to have the prop- 
erty man collect in perfectly defined 
places, every bit of furniture, accessories, 
and properties used in each act, where they 
can be instantly handled. 

Next, stack up in separate places the 
scenery for each act, so there will be no 
confusion here, no handling of the wrong 
pieces. 

Suppose the command "Strike!" is given 
by the stage manager, as the signal to re- 
move the setting of one scene and put on 



184 Amateur Stage Directing 

another. Instantly the carpenter's crew 
slide and carry off the sides and the rear 
of the scenery walls ; the moment there is 
sufficient room the property man's crew 
carry out all the movable articles on the 
stage, and place them in a pile together. 
Next, the property men bring on the stage 
all the heavier pieces of furniture, the floor 
coverings, of the next act. Retiring, they 
give place to the scene shifters, who first 
place in position the rear wall, then the side 
walls, lastly the ceiling and the backing. 
When the scenery is in place, the property 
men bring on the small articles and dispose 
them where the action of the play requires 
them. The moment the scenery is in 
place, the electrician will start connecting 
up any lamps, wall lights, or hanging table 
lamps, which are needed. And it is un- 
necessary to say that all the preliminary 
work of this sort is to be completed long 
before the performance starts. The 



Stage and Scenery — Orchestra 185 

electrician can work but just so fast, 
and his work at the time of scene shifting 
must be limited to screwing in bulbs and 
making other simple connections. Never 
try to carry bulky properties through 
scenery doors; handle all the properties 
of the larger sort when the stage is clear. 
Window curtains, portieres, and other 
wall fixtures, should always be so hung or 
otherwise arranged that they can be car- 
ried out bodily with the "flats" of scen- 
ery. 

THE ORCHESTRA 

If use is made of incidental music dur- 
ing the action of the play, and in the in- 
termissions, the stage manager and the or- 
chestra leader must understand one an- 
other clearly on several points. 

Entr'acte music ought to be in keeping 
with the general character of the play. 

If music is required during the play, as 



186 Amateur Stage Directing 

an accompaniment to the action, the stage 
manager must give the orchestra leader in 
writing such unmistakable cues and other 
directions as will forestall any chance of 
missing the connection between the lines, 
the action, and the music. It is impera- 
tive that the orchestra leader shall rehearse 
any and all incidental music with the com- 
pany, certainly once (at the final re- 
hearsal) and, if possible, much oftener. 

Ten minutes before the play starts, the 
orchestra must be signaled to its place. 

The best signal for the orchestra to 
cease playing, as the curtain is ready to be 
raised, is wink the lights on the music 
stands, dim the lights in the auditorium, 
and switch on the footlights, in this order. 
The use of a bell as a signal for the curtain 
to be raised is now out of fashion. The 
signals with the lights are less obtrusive 
but equally emphatic, and are therefore to 
be preferred. 



Concluding Words 187 

IN CONCLUSION 

Amateurs sometimes think of all the 
work connected with the mechanical part 
of a production as uninteresting. They 
are apt to believe that acting the play is 
about all there is to a performance. But 
it is to be sincerely hoped that all groups 
of amateurs who wish to get all the good 
and all the pleasure possible out of their 
work and fun, will undertake to learn the 
duties and the responsibilities of the cos- 
turners, scene builders, electricians, and in- 
dispensable "Props," — of those, in short, 
whose work contributes directly to the ar- 
tistic general effect of the piece. 

If amateur productions are reduced to 
a mere learning of lines and "business," 
under nervous coaching, they are not 
worth bothering about. If they are so 
conceived as to make a call not only on the 
histrionic ability but also on the ingenuity, 



188 Amateur Stage Directing 

taste, and cultivation of the people organ- 
izing them, amateur plays are of very 
great value indeed. 

And that, to-day, there is a great and 
growing interest among responsible people 
concerning the theater and the amateur 
production, and the whole question of the 
relation of the stage to the community, 
is a matter for profound congratulation. 
For until the theater becomes a popular 
institution in every sense, it is still an alien, 
still an exotic, still nothing but a play- 
house for the well-to-do. And that the 
amateur play is the means of bringing 
thousands of persons to a knowledge of 
the theater, to an interest in it, to a love 
for it, is perfectly true. For this reason 
alone, perhaps, were there no others, 
thoughtful people should encourage by 
every means, and support with en- 
thusiasm, all efforts to make popular and 



Concluding Words 189 

vital that kind of acting and production 
which this little book hopes, in a small 
way, to make easier. 



A GLOSSARY 

OF 

COMMON STAGE TERMS 

ACT, a principal division of a play. Also applied 
to a short play, monologue, dance, song, or 
exhibition, presented by an individual or a 
small company, as a number on a program. 

APRON, the part of the stage extending toward 
the audience from the proscenium. 

ARCH, a section of upright scenery which in- 
cludes a principal doorway or archway. 

AT RISE, at the beginning of a play or an act. 

BACK, the region behind the visible stage; also 
called " back stage." 

BACK DROP, a single piece of upright scenery 
extending the entire width of the visible stage 
and forming its rear boundary; used as a 
background, most often with exterior sets, de- 
picting landscape and sky. 

BACKING, sections of upright scenery placed be- 
hind doors, windows, and other openings in 
interior sets. 

190 



Glossary 191 

BORDERS, sections of scenery depending from 
above the stage, of varying length, represent- 
ing (typically) the sky, a ceiling, or branches 
of trees. "Cut borders" is sometimes applied 
to sections of upright scenery used on the 
sides of the stage to represent trees and 
shrubs, and to mask (usually) entrances. 
"Wood cuts" is another name for the same 
pieces. 

BORDER LIGHTS, rows of lights giving illu- 
mination from above. 

BRACE, a jointed pole used to support scenery. 

BUNCH LIGHTS, clusters of lights on portable 
standards serving to illuminate special areas, 
from the sides. 

CROSS (TO), to move from one side of the stage 
toward another, in any direction. 

DIMMER, a device to regulate the intensity of 
the lights. 

DISCOVERED, present on the stage at the open- 
ing of the play or act. 

DOCK, the region under the stage. 

DOWN, in the direction of the audience. Also 
called "Down stage" (as either an adverb or 
an adjective: e.g.: — "Crosses down stage; 
raises down stage arm"). 

DROPS, pieces of scenery extending the entire 
width and height of the visible stage, to sup- 
ply backgrounds, hung at varying distances 



192 Amateur Stage Directing 

from the front. "Act drops" are the back- 
grounds for large divisions of the play; 
"scene drops" are the backgrounds of sub- 
divisions. Drops are sometimes employed 
merely to create an effect of haze or shadow, 
in which case they are made of a special 
"gauze" to be in various degrees transparent. 

FLAT, a section of upright scenery. 

FLIES, a gallery above the stage from which 
scenery is lowered and raised. 

FLYMAN, an employee who handles scenery from 
the flies. 

FOOTS, the footlights. 

FRONT, the part of the visible stage nearest the 
audience. "Out front," before the curtain or 
in the audience. 

FRONT SCENE, a portion of a play performed 
before a very shallow set of scenery. Some- 
times called "a scene in one." 

GRIP, a scene shifter. Assistant to the stage car- 
penter. 

GROOVES, a series of grooves built out from the 
flies at regular intervals, to support the tops 
of pieces of upright scenery. Not often 
found in modern theaters. 

LASH LINE, a cord used to bind together and 
steadying adjoining sections of upright 
scenery. 

LEFT, the actor's left; abbreviated to L. 



Glossary 193 

LIGHT PLOT, a statement of all lighting ef- 
fects required in a play, with detailed direc- 
tions regarding their start, duration, intensity, 
and character, supplied to the electrician. 

MUSIC PLOT, a statement of all the incidental 
music required in a play, with cues and direc- 
tions for beginning and ending each selection, 
furnished to the orchestra leader. 

ON, on the visible stage. 

OFF, off the visible stage. 

PRACTICABLE, or "practical," applied to all 
properties and to pieces of scenery which can 
actually be used. Real food and drink, a 
window which opens, a door which locks, for 
instance, are "practical." 

PROPERTIES, the various articles required for 
the actors' use in the action of the play. 

PROPERTY MAN, the person who has charge of 
the properties. 

PROSCENIUM, the arch framing the visible 
stage. 

RETURNS, sections of upright scenery set on the 
right and left, just inside the proscenium, ad- 
joining the side flats and connected with them 
at right angles. 

RIGGING LOFT, the flies or fly gallery. 

RUN, an artificial inclined plane leading to the 
visible stage, as a path or a staircase. 

SCENE, a subdivision of the play's action. 



194 Amateur Stage Directing 

SCENE PLOT, a list of the "sets" required in the 
successive acts or scenes of a play, furnished 
to the stage carpenter. 

SET, the scenery of any part of a play. ("The 
second act set.") 

SET PIECE, a structure built out from the 
scenery or isolated on the stage, as a tree, a 
mound, a wall, a well curb. 

SPOT LIGHT, a light focussed on a small area to 
give prominence to an individual actor or 
small group, or to impart a special color to a 
part of the setting. Operated from behind 
and above the audience. 

STRIP LIGHTS, short sections of lights, in rows, 
with reflectors, portable, to illuminate special 
areas. 

TORMENTORS, the passages between the re- 
turns and the proscenium. 

TRAP, a hole cut in the floor of the stage. 

UP, toward the rear of the visible stage. 

UPSTAGE, the part of the visible stage farthest 
from the audience. 



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